INMEDIATO

Influence of the Mediterranean Outflow on the Atlantic Ocean Climate: the role of local scale processes

Coordinatore	MAX PLANCK GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN E.V.    more  Organization address address: Hofgartenstrasse 8 city: MUENCHEN postcode: 80539 contact info Nome: Claudia Cognome: Piltz Email: send email Telefono: +49 40 41173285 Fax: +49 40 41173298
Nazionalità Coordinatore	Germany [DE]
Totale costo	0 €
EC contributo	214˙970 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008
Funding Scheme	MC-IEF
Anno di inizio	2009
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2009-10-01   -   2011-09-30

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	MAX PLANCK GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN E.V.  Organization address address: Hofgartenstrasse 8 city: MUENCHEN postcode: 80539 contact info Nome: Claudia Cognome: Piltz Email: send email Telefono: +49 40 41173285 Fax: +49 40 41173298	DE (MUENCHEN)	coordinator	214˙970.62

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'It is widely accepted that the Mediterranean Outflow (MO) has influence on deep water production in the North Atlantic (NA), and therefore on NA climate, but the extent of that influence remains controversial and closely linked to the dispute about preferred MO pathways to the northern seas: a direct advective pathway (strong influence) or an indirect one through mixing with NA Current waters (weak). The MO spreading pathways are quite well established in the vicinity of the Iberian peninsula from hydrographic data, unfortunately further north it is hard to estimate from observations what the direct/indirect contribution of MO to the warm saline inflow into the northern seas is. Climate models addressing this issue support the indirect hypothesis, however they are unable to resolve adequately the Strait of Gibraltar (SoG) and the Gulf of Cadiz (GoC) – key areas where local-scale processes may impact on MO properties and spreading – and fail to represent adequately the MO signatures in the NA as compared to observations, with higher salinities, mainly southward from the SoG and an exaggerated MO diffusive spreading pattern. Regional/process models with higher resolution present the disadvantage of prescribing open boundary conditions, short time-scale runs and the lack of feedback with larger scale circulation. Considering that tidally-driven processes might be relevant at the SoG and GoC, where the width of the MO plume is few tenths km, our goal is to investigate the effect of MO on the NA climate establishing: 1) how local-scale processes at SoG and GoC affect the MO properties and spreading; 2) the way the MO accesses the northern seas; 3) the relevance of that local-scale processes for the NA climate. We propose an integral approach allowing to resolve the local-scale processes at the SoG and the GoC as well as the larger-scale processes which may influence the NA climate, using an efficient ocean GCM with regional high resolution allowing for long-term runs.'