Aegean Circulation Based on the 2002 Pilot Drifter Array

A collaboration between the University of Miami, the Greek National Center of Marine Research and the University of

Athens.

GPS Units

• Holey sock drogue at 10 m mid-depth.

• GPS navigation and one hour reporting.

• Uplink through ARGOS.

• Data on GTS and website link.

• Hull Sea Surface Temperature

• Stranding recovery by NCMR and U. Athens.

Program involved deployment of 30 Global Positioning System/ARGOS drifters.

Drogues are WOCE standard by at a 10m mid-depth rather than the 15 m. This is to allow shallow water capability.

Launches were done from IMS cruises.

Mean flows by 2X2 degree boxes.

Red > 10 units

Black < 10 units

Calculations by C. Veneziani

Mean velocities with variance ellipses

C. Veneziani

Eddy Kinetic Energy from Drifter Array as of 9/27/02

C. Veneziani

Northern Aegean

Black Sea outflow: Low S

Drifter trajectories over bottom topography

Flows in the general outfall plume into bays.

Strong control by the bay mouth mesoscale field.

Flow into the western side of the northern Aegean Sea

Bifurcation of flow and cross shelf exchange mediated by the mesoscale.

Flow to the south in a coherent coastal jet.

Flow through Sporades Straits

Modulation of flow with respect to capes and bays off Evvoia

Chios Basin Gyre

Analysis of the along shore currents. Coordinate system.

Drifter tracks relative to the line.

Coastal Jet

Sporades

The Chios Basin Gyre.

Lifting of jet off coast.

Gyre over intermediate topography

Outflow to the west.

Inflow in east

Some M2 tide

Tradition is that this component is weak: Island scattering on coast?

QUICKSAT: Scatterometer winds: Synoptic forcing?

Conclusions

• A thirty drifter array in 2002 provides a rich starting point to begin a new assessment of not only the Aegean, but marginal seas with complicated topographies in general.

• The data is still being collected; but the results to date suggest a very rich set of results.