Transformation of Levantine Intermediate Water tracked by MEDARGO floats in the Western Mediterranean

Observations of new western Mediterranean deep water formation using Argo floats 2004–2006

“…In relation to the Mediterranean Sea, a principal deployment of Argo floats took place in 2003 with floats then recovered in spring 2006 (Poulain et al, 2007). Three studies have already presented data from these floats: Taillandier et al (2006) assimilated Argo data into a model of the Mediterranean Sea suggesting such data would be suitable for providing initial conditions for ocean circulation modelling, López-Jurado et al (2005) contrasted Argo float data with that of CTD data in the Catalan subbasin in observing a disruption to a previously observed warming trend and Emelianov et al (2006) confirmed a hypothesis of a "discrete-continuous" thermohaline structure of LIW in the western basin, through analysis of Argo float CTD profiles. This study will examine the recent wintertime characteristics of the western basin of the Mediterranean Sea, through description and analysis of Argo float data collected during the winter months of 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.…”

“…Measurements of temperature, conductivity -used to determine salinity -and pressure were made using on-board Sea-Bird Microcat CTD sensors with accuracies of 0.002 • C, 0.005 and 2.4 dbars respectively. Initial analysis of Argo float data coupled with discussion by Poulain et al (2007) and Emelianov et al (2006) suggests none of the floats experienced significant drift in any of the CTD sensors following pre-deployment calibration.…”

Detection of a weak meddy-like anomaly from high-resolution satellite SST maps

“…Therefore, the degree of transformation of thermohaline extrema can be used to follow the DTA (Emelianov et al 2006), as we did during the oceanographic survey. Each down cast T,S profile was processed during the up cast carried out in order to actualize the maps and cross-sections of the spatial distribution of T,S characteristics of MW.…”

Preface "Operational oceanography in the Mediterranean Sea: the second stage of development"

“…a dedicated and customized ARGO float program for the Mediterranean Sea, so-called MEDARGO (Poulain et al, 2007) to sample adequately the thermohaline structure of the basin (Emelianov et al, 2006). The float sampling scheme and the impact of temperature and salinity assimilation on the quality of the model analyses have been analysed with Observing System Simulation Experiments ; 4. a Fishery Observing System-FOS that allowed the collection of combined fish stock and temperature data (Falco et al, 2007);…”