Tracking a big anticyclonic eddy in the western Mediterranean Sea

Authors

  • Jordi Font Institut de Ciències del Mar, CMIMA-CSIC
  • Jordi Isern-Fontanet Institut de Ciències del Mar, CMIMA-CSIC
  • José De Jesus Salas Institut de Ciències del Mar, CMIMA-CSIC

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/scimar.2004.68n3331

Keywords:

Mediterranean sea, Algerian basin, mesoscale eddies, Lagrangian drifters, satellite altimetry

Abstract


In May 1998 a big and deep open ocean anticyclonic eddy (AE 98-1) was sampled in the Algerian basin (western Mediterranean sea) in a region south of the Balearic islands. Fifteen surface Lagrangian buoys, tracked by satellite, were released across the eddy and were used for a few months to observe the continuity of the anticyclonic motion and the westward drift of the eddy. This kind of big and intense eddies in the Mediterranean can be detected by satellite altimeter radars. Using a new method, based on the Okubo-Weiss criterion, to identify mesoscale eddies in Sea Level Anomaly maps derived from measurements of the ERS and TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeters, an independent tracking of the same eddy was performed. There is a remarkable agreement between the two results despite the different nature of the information, mainly due to the fact that SLA maps contain interpolated and smoothed measurements while the drifter? trajectories are in situ data obtained from individual drifter fixes. The location of the eddy centre during two months with the two methods agrees within an average distance lower than the spatial resolution of the altimetric maps (0.2º). The size of the eddy, when it is possible to determine it, is also highly coincident in both cases (96.5% in diameter), and its average westwards translation speed is reasonably similar (24% lower from drifters). These results can be considered a good validation of the new tracking method in SLA maps in this specific case.

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Published

2004-09-30

How to Cite

1.
Font J, Isern-Fontanet J, De Jesus Salas J. Tracking a big anticyclonic eddy in the western Mediterranean Sea. Sci. mar. [Internet]. 2004Sep.30 [cited 2024Mar.28];68(3):331-42. Available from: https://scientiamarina.revistas.csic.es/index.php/scientiamarina/article/view/379

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