Warming of the Gulf of Eilat (Red Sea) water due to advection
- 1Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, BIDR, SIDEER, Israel (sounav.sengupta4@gmail.com)
- 2Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, BIDR, SIDEER, Israel (ashkena@bgu.ac.il)
- 3The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Science, The Institute of Earth Sciences, Israel (hezi.gildor@mail.huji.ac.il)
The Gulf of Eilat is a body of water located at the northern tip of the Red Sea and is
known for its unique marine ecosystem. We analyzed the sea temperature and
salinity, air temperature, heat flux, and other climatological data in order to better
understand the processes driving the Gulf's dynamics. The sea temperature data
was based on 18 years of measurements taken at depths up to 700 meters, while
the meteorological data was based on 16 years of observations. The analysis
indicates the sea temperature is significantly increasing at all depths; yet, no clear
trends were found in the air temperature. The increased warming is associated with
much fewer deep mixing events and used to occur more frequently. We constructed
the ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes and concluded that the horizontal advection of
heat from the southern part of the Red Sea might underlie the increase in water
temperature in the Gulf of Eilat. This conclusion is also supported by the recent IPCC
reports and previous studies. Our results indicate that local ocean warming is not
necessarily linked to a local increase in air temperature but rather to the warming of
other remote places.
How to cite: Sengupta, S., Ashkenazy, Y., and Gildor, H.: Warming of the Gulf of Eilat (Red Sea) water due to advection, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-11442, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-11442, 2023.
