Thermohaline evolution at 400 m depth in the Sicily Channel, a choke point of the Mediterranean Sea

DOI

The Sicily Channel (SC) site has been monitored for thermohaline properties and water mass exchanges since 1993 by two moorings located within parallel trenches in the 150 km-long transect between Tunisia and Sicily. They form two of the longest Mediterranean time series of thermohaline properties. Due to the Coriolis effect, the IW core at the sill that funnel its westward flow is squeezed to the right, in both trenches, with the 400 m deep record in the north-eastern mooring (called C01) showing slightly warmer (by about 0.04 °C) and saltier (by about 0.01) values than the south-western one (called C02). As the temperature (T) and salinity (S) time series at both sites are very similar only the C02 (WMO code: 6101022, position: 37.2843° N, 11.4995° E) time series is presented here. The nominal depth of the instruments is 400 m, which is however subject to slight variations between servicing of the mooring, of the order of few tens of meters.From 1993 to November 2002 temperature and conductivity have been recorded by means of Aanderaa RCM7 current meters, with an accuracy of 0.05 °C and 0.05 for T and S, respectively. Since November 2002, SBE37 probes have been used, which further improved the quality of the measurements, yielding 0.002 °C and 0.001 for T and S, respectively. Both types of instruments (RCM and SBE) have been regularly calibrated (at least on an annual basis).

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932163
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932174
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.932163
Provenance
Creator Borghini, Mireno; Schroeder, Katrin ORCID logo; Chiggiato, Jacopo ORCID logo; Sparnocchia, Stefania ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2021
Funding Reference Seventh Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011102 Crossref Funder ID 262584 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/262584 Towards a joint European research infrastructure network for coastal observatories; Seventh Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011102 Crossref Funder ID 287600 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/287600 Policy-oriented marine Environmental Research in the Southern EUropean Seas; Seventh Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011102 Crossref Funder ID 603773 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/603773 Ocean Food-web Patrol – Climate Effects: Reducing Targeted Uncertainties with an Interactive Network; Seventh Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011102 Crossref Funder ID 614155 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/614155 Cost-effective sensors, interoperable with international existing ocean obsering systems, to meet EU policies requirements; Sixth Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011103 Crossref Funder ID 36949 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/36949 Southern European Seas: Assessing and Modelling Ecosystem Changes
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 23804 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (11.499 LON, 37.284 LAT); Sicily Channel
Temporal Coverage Begin 1993-11-09T12:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2019-08-30T12:00:00Z