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SEASONAL AND INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN SEA, COASTAL AND ESTUARINE STUDIES, VOL. 46, PAGES 13–32, 1994

An Estimate of the Net Heat Transport Through the Strait of Gibraltar

Alison M. Macdonald, Julio Candela, and Harry L. Bryden


Abstract

Data from two of the Gibraltar Experiment current meter moorings, located at center of the main sill of the Strait of Gibraltar (5°45' W, 36°55' N) are used to estimate the net advective heat flux into the Mediterranean. This new estimate of net heat flux is an improvement upon previous estimates because it includes the flux associated with the correlations between inflow and outflow velocities and temperatures, u'T'. The results indicate a net gain of heat by the Mediterranean through advective currents of 3.3 ± 0.8 × 106 m3s−1°C. Balancing the heat budget, this gain represents about 5.2 ±1.3 Wm-2 lost to the atmosphere within the Mediterranean. It is also found that at the sill, estimates of the heat transport due to temporal variations may exceed the estimates of the time averaged component. At least half the net heat transport into the Mediterranean is due to temporal variations in velocity and temperature. The uncertainty of 0.8 × 106 m3s-1°C is based upon the variance of the computed estimates. However, as the data used here are lacking measurements in the upper 100 m of the water column at the mooring locations, it is anticipated that the true variance may be larger due to the seasonal temperature variability of the surface waters.

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Citation: Macdonald, A. M., J. Candela, and H. L. Bryden (1994), An estimate of the net heat transport through the Strait of Gibraltar , in Seasonal and Interannual Variability of the Western Mediterranean Sea Coastal and Estuarine Studies, Coastal Estuarine Stud., vol. 46, edited by P. E. La Viollette et al., pp. 13-32, AGU, Washington, D. C.