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Abstract. The Mediterranean Forecasting system Pilot Project has concluded its activities in 2001, achieving the following goals: Realization of the first high-frequency (twice a month)Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) system for the Mediterranean Sea with XBT profiles for the upper thermocline (0-700 m) and 12 n.m. along track nominal resolution;2. Realization of the first Mediterranean Multidisciplinary Moored Array (M3A) system for the Near-Real-Time (NRT) acquisition of physical and biochemical observations. The actual observations consists of: air-sea interaction parameters, upper thermocline (0-500 m) temperature, salinity, oxygen and currents, euphotic zone (0-100 m) chlorophyll, nutrients, Photosinthetically Available Radiation (PAR) and turbidity;3. Analysis and NRT dissemination of high quality along track Sea Level Anomaly (SLA), Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data from satellite sensors to be assimilated into the forecasting model;4. Assembly and implementation of a multivariate Reduced Order Optimal Interpolation scheme (ROOI) for assimilation in NRT of all available data, in particular, SLA and VOS-XBT profiles;5. Demonstration of the practical feasibility of NRT ten day forecasts at the Mediterranean basin scale with resolution of 0.125 • in latitude and longitude. The analysis or nowcast is done once a week;6. Development and implementation of nested regional (5 km) and shelf (2-3 km) models to simulate the seasonal variability. Four regional and nine shelf modelsCorrespondence to: N. Pinardi (n.pinardi@ambra.unibo.it)were implemented successfully, nested within the forecasting model. The implementation exercise was carried out in different region/shelf dynamical regimes and it was demonstrated that one-way nesting is practical and accurate;7. Validation and calibration of a complex ecosystem model in data reach shelf areas, to prepare for forecasting in a future phase. The same ecosystem model is capable of reproducing the major features of the primary producers' carbon cycle in different regions and shelf areas. The model simulations were compared with the multidisciplinary M3A buoy observations and assimilation techniques were developed for the biochemical data.This paper overviews the methodological aspects of the research done, from the NRT observing system to the forecasting/modelling components and to the extensive validation/calibration experiments carried out with regional/shelf and ecosystem models.

Abstract.A new numerical general circulation ocean model for the Mediterranean Sea has been implemented nested within an Atlantic general circulation model within the framework of the Marine Environment and Security for the European Area project (MERSEA, Desaubies, 2006). A 4-year twin experiment was carried out from January 2004 to December 2007 with two different models to evaluate the impact on the Mediterranean Sea circulation of open lateral boundary conditions in the Atlantic Ocean. One model considers a closed lateral boundary in a large Atlantic box and the other is nested in the same box in a global ocean circulation model. Impact was observed comparing the two simulations with independent observations: ARGO for temperature and salinity profiles and tide gauges and along-track satellite observations for the sea surface height. The improvement in the nested Atlantic-Mediterranean model with respect to the closed one is particularly evident in the salinity characteristics of the Modified Atlantic Water and in the Mediterranean sea level seasonal variability.

Abstract.A modelling system for the Adriatic Sea has been built within the framework of the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project. The modelling system consists of a hierarchy of three numerical models (whole Mediterranean Sea, whole Adriatic Sea, Northern Adriatic Basin) coupled among each other by simple one-way, off-line nesting techniques, to downscale the larger scale flow field to highly resolved coastal scale fields. Numerical simulations have been carried out under climatological surface forcing. Simulations were aimed to assess the effectiveness of the nesting techniques and the skill of the system to reproduce known features of the Adriatic Sea circulation phenomenology (main circulation features, dense water formation, flow at the Otranto Strait and coastal circulation characteristics over the northern Adriatic shelf), in view of the pre-operational use of the modelling system. This paper describes the modelling system setup, and discusses the simulation results for the whole Adriatic Sea and its northern basin, comparing the simulations with the observed climatological circulation characteristics. Results obtained with the northern Adriatic model are also compared with the corresponding simulations obtained with the coarser resolution Adriatic model.

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Abstract. This study describes a new model implementation for the Mediterranean Sea with what is currently the highest vertical resolution over the Mediterranean basin. The resolution is of 1/16 • ×1/16 • in the horizontal and has 72 unevenly spaced vertical levels. This model has been developed in the frame of the EU-MFSTEP project and is the operational forecast model currently used at the basin scale.The model considers an implicit free surface and this characteristic enhances the model's capability to simulate the sea surface height variability and the net transport at the Strait of Gibraltar.In this study we show the calibration/validation experiments performed before and after the model was used for forecasting. The first experiment consists of a six-year simulation forced by a perpetual year forcing, and the other experiment is a simulation from January 1997 to December 2004, forcing the model with 6-h atmospheric forcing fields from ECMWF. The model Sea Level Anomaly has been compared for the first time with satellite SLA and with ARGO data to provide evidence of the quality of the simulation.The results show that this model is capable of reproducing most of the variability of the general circulation in the Mediterranean Sea. However, some basic model inadequacies stand out and should be corrected in the near future.

This paper describes the seasonal characteristics of the Mediterranean Sea general circulation as simulated by a primitive equation general circulation model. The forcing is composed of climatological monthly mean atmospheric parameters, which are used to compute the heat and momentum budgets at the air-sea interface of the model. This allows heat fluxes to be determined by a realistic air-sea interaction physics. The 10 •0 Strait of Gibraltar is open, and the model resolution is X x • in the horizontal and 19 levels in the vertical. The results show the large seasonal cycle of the circulation and its transient characteristics. The heat budget at the surface is characterized by lateral boundary intensifications occurring in downwelling and upwelling areas of the basin. The general circulation is composed of subbasin gyres, and cyclonic motion dominates the northern and anticyclonic motion the southern part of the basin. The Atlantic stream which enters from Gibraltar and assumes the form of different boundary current subsystems is a coherent structure at the surface. At depth it appears as current segments and jets around a vigorous gyre system. The seasonal variability is manifested not only by a change in amplitude and location of the gyres but also by the appearance of seasonally recurrent gyres in different parts of the basin. Distinct westward propagation of these gyres occurs, together with amplitude changes. For the first time a Mersa-Matruh Gyre is successfully simulated due to the introduction of our heat fluxes at the air-sea interface. The seasonal thermocline is formed each summer, and a deep winter mixed layer is produced in the region of Levantine intermediate water formation. Deep water renewal does not occur, probably due to the climatological forcing used. 1permanently at Paper number 95JC00233. 0148-0227/95/95JC-00233505.00 to be composed of four major structures, schematically represented in Figure 1. The first major structure is the surface Atlantic stream system, composed initially of the inflowing Atlantic water jet, entering from the Strait of Gibraltar. After the Alboran Sea this jet becomes the Algerian current, which departs from the North African coast, forming a smooth and large-scale anticyclonic meander in the center of the southern Algerian-Provencal basin. After crossing the Strait of Sicily, the Atlantic stream system occupies the southern part of the Ionian basin and is • called the Ionian-Atlantic stream, following Robinson et al. [1991]. The Ionian stream becomes the mid-Mediterranean jet, which intensifies between the Rhodes and Mersa-Matruh Gyres. The second major structure consists of the Lyon and Rhodes Gyres, which are the northern basin cyclonic gyres in which deep and intermediate waters form. The third major structure consists of the other cyclonic gyres of the basin, such as the Tyrrhenian Gyre, the western Ionian cyclonic gyre, and the cyclone southwest of Crete. Finally, the fourth major structure consists of the southern Mediterranean anticyclonic gyres such as the ...

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