Multiplatform observation of the surface circulation in the Gulf of Naples (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea)

Abstract

The Gulf of Naples (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea) is a highly urbanised area, where human activities and natural factors (e.g. river runoff, exchanges with adjacent basins) can strongly affect the water quality. In this work we show how surface transport can influence the distribution of passively drifting surface matter, and more in general if and how the circulation in the basin can promote the renovation of the surface layer. To this aim, we carried out a multiplatform analysis by putting together HF radar current fields, satellite images and modelling tools. Surface current fields and satellite images of turbidity patterns were used to initialise and run model simulations of particle transport and diffusion. Model results were then examined in relation to the corresponding satellite distributions. This integrated approach permits to investigate the concurrent effects of surface dynamics and wind forcing in determining the distribution of passive tracers over the basin of interest, identifying key mechanisms supporting or preventing the renewal of surface waters as well as possible areas of aggregation and retention.

HF Radar Activity in European Coastal Seas: Next Steps toward a Pan-European HF Radar Network

“…Since the applications related to the management of the marine environment and emergencies at sea require accurate prediction of Lagrangian trajectories, several studies have assessed the effectiveness of trajectory predictions using currents derived from HFR (Menna et al, 2007;Uttieri et al, 2011;Solabarrieta et al, 2016). An example of calculation of Lagrangian trajectories using HFR data is shown in Figure 5.…”

“…Using different FIGURE 5 | Example of Lagrangian application. Series of 12-h snapshots of the time evolution of 10,000 tracer particles in the Gulf of Naples, deployed along the urban littoral, dispersing over the whole Gulf and eventually reaching the opposite Sorrento peninsula in the turn of 3 days (Gulf of Naples AMRA-CoNISMa-UniParthenope HFR system; for validation of these results with satellite imagery see Uttieri et al, 2011). assimilation approaches (e.g., optimal interpolation, ensemble Kalman methods, 4DVAR) it was demonstrated that HFR data can be used to significantly improve forecasts of currents and other oceanographic variables in coastal areas. There seems to be, however, room for improvement, e.g., concerning the length of the forecast horizons.…”

“…A growing number of European studies have been developed on the use of HFR data toward a better understanding of the surface ocean coastal dynamics (Shrira et al, 2001;Rubio et al, 2011;Schaeffer et al, 2011;Uttieri et al, 2011;Sentchev et al, 2013;Berta et al, 2014a;Shrira and Forget, 2015;Stanev et al, 2015;Falco et al, 2016). Moreover, since HFR data provide measurements of currents with a relatively wide spatial coverage and high spatial and temporal resolution in near real time (there are systems with lags of just 20 min, after generating the data), they have become invaluable tools in the field of operational oceanography.…”

Inshore/offshore water exchange in the Gulf of Naples

“…An HF radar system has been active since 2004 over almost the entire area of the GoN and has been used in different applications in recent years (e.g. Cianelli et al, 2013;Menna et al, 2007;Uttieri et al, 2011). Most of the HF radar-based investigations focus on relatively short periods of time (from days to weeks), and only a few use radar-derived current measurements over periods of six months or longer (e.g.…”

Multiparametric observation and analysis of the sea

“…Five papers in this special issue use highfrequency radar for various purposes: three of them use a combination of radar data and hydrodynamic modelling to study the spatio-temporal variability of the German Bight (Port et al 2011), the Gulf of Lions (Schaeffer et al 2011) and the Gulf of Naples (Uttieri et al 2011). Barth et al (2011) assimilate radar data into a hydrodynamical model of the German Bight, allowing for the improvement of the wind field used to force the hydrodynamical model.…”