Eddies in the Western Mediterranean seen in thermal infrared imagery and SLA fields

ABSTRACT

In this article, daily fields of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level anomaly (SLA) of the Western Mediterranean Sea obtained in 2011–2013 are being co-analysed. The study is aimed at assessing potentials of the fields of SLA for manifestation of mesoscale eddies in the region of interest. First, the SST imagery was inspected visually and locations of mesoscale eddies noticed in the images were detected. After that, closed contours were extracted in the fields of SLA and their locations were compared with locations of eddies directly seen in the SST images. Such a comparison showed that among anticyclonic eddies found in SST, about 56.3% had corresponding closed contours of SLA; the percentage was increasing with increasing eddy diameter. For cyclonic eddies, supposedly due to their smaller spatial and time scales, such percentage was only about 20.2%. During the warm season, when the mixed layer is particularly shallow and the turbulence is closer to the two-dimensional model, the correspondence between eddies seen in SST and closed contours of SLA was higher than during the cold period.

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by the University of Liege and the E.U. in the context of the FP7-PEOPLE-COFUND-BeIPD project. This study has been conducted using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by the University of Liege and the E.U. in the context of the FP7-PEOPLE-COFUND-BeIPD project.