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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 113, C04024, doi:10.1029/2007JC004649, 2008

Eddy transport of Western Mediterranean Intermediate Water to the Alboran Sea

J. T. Allen

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK


S. C. Painter

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK


M. Rixen

NATO Undersea Research Centre, La Spezia, Italy


Abstract

During the second cruise of the EU funded OMEGA project the towed undulating vehicle SeaSoar, was deployed to survey the upper 350 m of the water column in the eastern Alboran Sea and extreme western Algerian basin. With an effective along-track resolution of 4 km, the data sets enabled a detailed description of the different upper ocean water types and the fronts that separate them. The Almeria Oran front forms at the eastern boundary of the Alboran Sea gyre system, in the upper 150–200 m of the water column, and separates waters of predominantly Atlantic origin from those formed in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Below these surface waters, but above the Levantine Intermediate Water, Western Mediterranean Intermediate Waters, believed to be formed to the north of the Balearic Sea, are normally observed in this region. However, to our knowledge, this is the first time a discrete eddy of Western Mediterranean Intermediate Water, a “weddy,” has been described in the extreme western Algerian basin. Repeated surveys of the region allowed us to observe the evolution of the eddy over a period of 40 d. A climatological analysis of historical data in the MEDAR/MEDATLAS database provides evidence for the repeatability of this observation and the significance of the estimated transport.

Received 26 November 2007; accepted 5 March 2008; published 19 April 2008.

Keywords: WIW; weddy.

Index Terms: 4516 Oceanography: Physical: Eastern boundary currents; 4283 Oceanography: General: Water masses; 4512 Oceanography: Physical: Currents.

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Citation: Allen, J. T., S. C. Painter, and M. Rixen (2008), Eddy transport of Western Mediterranean Intermediate Water to the Alboran Sea, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C04024, doi:10.1029/2007JC004649.