Surname: Fenoglio-Marc
Firstname: Luciana
Title: Dr.
Organisation: Technical University Darmstadt
Department: Inst. of Physical Geodesy 
Address_1: Petersenstr. 13
Address_2:  
City: 64287
Country: Germany
Email: fenoglio@ipg.tu-darmstadt.de
Phone: +49-6151-163012
Fax: +49-6151-164512

Interdecadal Model for the Sea Surface Height in the Mediterranean Sea

Dr. Luciana Fenoglio-Marc⁽¹⁾and Kay Su╡lj2 ⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾ Technical University Darmstadt, Petersenstr. 13, 64287, Germany
⁽²⁾ Environmental Agency of The Republic of Slovenia, Vojkova 1b, 1000 Ljubljana email: kay.suselj@gov.si

Abstract

The steric expansion of the Mediterranean Sea during 1955-2003 is assessed on the basis of several regional and global climatologies. The agreement of the basin averaged values of the thermo-steric component from the woa01, Ishii and Medar databases are within 8 mm in rms. The rms of the basin averaged halo-steric component is below 2 cm, with maximum values occurring in the Alboran, Northern Ionian and Levantine Basins, with 3.8, 4.0 and 4.3 cm respectively.

The estimates of the steric expansion are compared with tide-gauge in 1955-2003 and with satellite based altimetry measurements in 1993-2003. The woa01 thermo-steric trends in 1958-2003 are between -0.7 and 0.8 mm/yr with positive values in the western and negative values in the eastern basin. In 1993-2003 the highest positive linear-term in the eastern Mediterranean and the negative linear-term in the Ionian Sea observed by altimetry are reproduced by the steric medar data.

An interdecadal model for Sea Surface Height (SSH) anomalies in Mediterranean Sea based on thermo-steric anomalies from the woa01 database is computed for the period 1955-2003. The main characteristics of the basin average decadal variability of this interdecadal model SSH are an increase in 1950-1980, a decrease in 1980-1988 and a new increase in the last decade. The model explains about 60% of the interdecadal sea level variability observed at the few longest tide gauge stations.