CoAuthors

Marco Meloni (Serco-ESA, Italy); Anne Petrenko (MIO - Institut Méditerranéen d, France); Andrea M. Doglioli (MIO - Institut Méditerranéen d, France); Jerome Bouffard (ESA-ESRIN, Italy)

The space-time variability of slope currents plays a key role on the across-shore transport of natural and anthropogenic elements.The Northern Mediterranean Current is the northern branch of the cyclonic circulation of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. Under particular wind and stratification conditions the Northern Current can penetrate on the Gulf of Lion shelf, with strong impact for the local biogeochemistry and consequently the primary production. Monitoring the positions of these hydrodynamical features in a synoptic way is therefore of critical importance. Satellite-based altimetric observations data can be an essential resource for monitoring the long-term behaviour of slope currents. The use of altrimetric-derived currents for monitoring intense but small in size current features especially near to the coast is still an issue..
Our approach for monitoring such current intrusions has been developed combining i) the output of a numerical simulation performed with the model SYPHONIE with a 3 km resolution spanning from 2001 to 2011, ii) coastal oriented optimized along-track altimetry dataset and iii) in-situ measurements acquired by a bottom-moored ADCP (RDI Ocean Sentinel, 300 kHz) positioned at at the JULIO (JUdicious Location for Intrusion Observation) station on the eastern side of the Gulf of Lion.