EGU21-2644
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2644
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Optical properties of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Vassiliki Metheniti1,2, Aristomenis P. Karageorgis3, Nikolaos Kampanis2, and Sarantis Sofianos1
Vassiliki Metheniti et al.
  • 1National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Physics, Athens, Greece (vasmeth@phys.uoa.gr)
  • 2Foundation for Research and Technology, Coastal and Marine Research Lab, Heraklion, Greece
  • 3Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, Anavyssos, Greece

The ocean's turbidity and optical properties are determined by the interaction of sunlight radiation with suspended particles and dissolved matter of the water body's surface layers. Variations in the optical properties can affect the upper ocean's heat content, thus modifying the stratification and the mixed layer dynamics. These variations can be monitored using satellite products, along with in-situ observations, and their impact on ocean circulation can be analyzed through numerical modeling. For the oligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean, there is a gap of in-situ data used to evaluate remote sensing observations. Furthermore, this region receives significant atmospheric deposition of particulate inorganic matter through African dust, as well as from river discharges. These constituents' contribution in optical properties modulation is often considered negligible for oligotrophic regions, where the various parameters have been calculated based on chlorophyll variations. To fill this gap, in situ measurements of beam attenuation coefficient at 660 nm (c, in m-1)(1) provided by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) were assessed, and a gridded dataset was constructed using Data-Interpolating Variational Analysis (DIVA), for the Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, for the years 1991-2019. The aim is to validate the accuracy of satellite products for this region using this dataset. Towards this goal, available satellite ocean color products of the ocean's inherent optical properties will be used to estimate c values, which will be compared to the in-situ dataset.

1. A. P. Karageorgis et al., Deep Sea Res. Part I 55, 177–202 (2008).

How to cite: Metheniti, V., Karageorgis, A. P., Kampanis, N., and Sofianos, S.: Optical properties of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-2644, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2644, 2021.