C. Mertens et F. Schott, INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF DEEP-WATER FORMATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN MEDITERRANEAN, Journal of physical oceanography, 28(7), 1998, pp. 1410-1424
In the Gulf of Lions, observations of deep convection have been sporad
ically carried out over the past three decades, showing significant in
terannual variability of convection activity. As long time series of m
eteorological observations of the region are available from coastal st
ations, heat flux time series for the Gulf of Lions for the individual
winters from 1969 to 1994 are derived by calibrating these observatio
ns against direct measurements obtained over the convection site. Thes
e heat fluxes are also compared against heat fluxes obtained by the Fr
ench PERIDOT weather model for the winter of 1991/92. A Kraus-Turner o
ne-dimensional mixed layer model is initialized by climatological mean
temperature and salinity profiles and then driven by the heat flux ti
me series of the individual years. Resulting convection depths are in
satisfactory agreement with existing observational evidence, showing t
he dominance of interannual variability of local forcing on convection
variability. The interannual variability of convection depth causes i
nterannual variations in deep-water properties, and these are also com
pared with the hydrographic database.