scholarly journals Offshore aquaculture as climate change adaptation in coastal areas: an analysis of sea surface temperature trends in the Western Mediterranean Sea

Author(s):  
I López Mengual ◽  
P Sanchez-Jerez ◽  
JD Ballester-Berman
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Pisano ◽  
Salvatore Marullo ◽  
Vincenzo Artale ◽  
Federico Falcini ◽  
Chunxue Yang ◽  
...  

Estimating long-term modifications of the sea surface temperature (SST) is crucial for evaluating the current state of the oceans and to correctly assess the impact of climate change at regional scales. In this work, we analyze SST variations within the Mediterranean Sea and the adjacent Northeastern Atlantic box (west of the Strait of Gibraltar) over the last 37 years, by using a satellite-based dataset from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). We found a mean warming trend of 0.041 ± 0.006 ∘ C/year over the whole Mediterranean Sea from 1982 to 2018. The trend has an uneven spatial pattern, with values increasing from 0.036 ± 0.006 ∘ C/year in the western basin to 0.048 ± 0.006 ∘ C/year in the Levantine–Aegean basin. The Northeastern Atlantic box and the Mediterranean show a similar trend until the late 1990s. Afterwards, the Mediterranean SST continues to increase, whereas the Northeastern Atlantic box shows no significant trend, until ~2015. The observed change in the Mediterranean Sea affects not only the mean trend but also the amplitude of the Mediterranean seasonal signal, with consistent relative increase and decrease of summer and winter mean values, respectively, over the period considered. The analysis of SST changes occurred during the “satellite era” is further complemented by reconstructions also based on direct in situ SST measurements, i.e., the Extended Reconstructed SST (ERSST) and the Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature dataset (HadISST), which go back to the 19th century. The analysis of these longer time series, covering the last 165 years, indicates that the increasing Mediterranean trend, observed during the CMEMS operational period, is consistent with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), as it closely follows the last increasing period of AMO. This coincidence occurs at least until 2007, when the apparent onset of the decreasing phase of AMO is not seen in the Mediterranean SST evolution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Go-Un Kim ◽  
Kyong-Hwan Seo ◽  
Deliang Chen

AbstractThe Mediterranean is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change and its summer climate is known to be affected by the South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) through the monsoon–desert teleconnection. In future, rainfall is expected to increase not only over the SASM area but also over the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and equatorial Atlantic regions. Here we show that the remote forcing regions affect the Mediterranean climate in the future. A subset of CMIP5 climate simulations exhibits an increase in the descending motion over the Western Mediterranean in the future. This strengthened subsidence comes from the SASM, EASM, and Atlantic forcings: the SASM and EASM heating induces the Gill-type Rossby wave response, and the Atlantic forcing causes the northeastward wave energy propagation. The sea surface temperature change over the Western Mediterranean is consistent with the subsidence change both in the future and in the recent decades. The chlorophyll-a concentration and fisheries landings have decreased in the recent period along with sea surface temperature warming. Our results suggest that special attention is required to conserve the marine ecosystem in the Mediterranean as climate warms.


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