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Information - OS11 Mediterranean Sea: a laboratory for interdisciplinary studies and climate research (co-listed in BG & CL)
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Event Information |
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The Mediterranean Sea is a laboratory basin for the study of oceanic processes of global importance, endowed moreover with a geographic configuration and logistics that make such studies more amenable to intensive field work and related modeling.
Such processes include the physics and dynamics underlying air-sea exchanges of
momentum, heat, moisture and greenhouse gases; basin-scale thermohaline circulations with possible multiple equilibria ;sub-basin scale wind-driven circulations and their seasonal, interannual and decadal variability; jet current instabilities and the generation and energetics of the mesoscale eddy field; the physics of convection and water mass formation, spreading and tranformation; among others.
Furthermore, the Mediterranean Sea comprises widely different ecosystems, ranging from the oligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean to eutrophic areas under the influence of the Po ( northern Adriatic) and Rhone river ( northwestern Mediterranean ) discharges. Physical processes greatly influence the seasonal dynamics and species composition of the marine populations. Climatic changes in progress, the related modifications of the hydrological cycles and mechanisms of water exchanges among different sub-basins can favour undesirable phenomena, like intrusion of alien species, harmful algal blooms including toxic species, intensification of mucilage events in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, anoxia events in eutrophic regions.
Furthermore, very recent and past climate changes have left important signatures in
the sediments, such as sapropels.Interactions of physical processes and ecosystem
dynamics make the Mediterranean sea an ideal basin for interdisciplinary research.
Contributions are solicited on each of the above topics, both from the observational
and modeling perspectives.
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