Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SEAFIRE (Path towards a sustainable Mediterranean Sea: mitigation actions to cope with Marine Heat Waves)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-05-16 al 2025-11-15
References:
[1] Von Schukmann et al., (2020), Earth Syst. Sci. 12,2013-2041, [2] Hobday and Pecl (2014). Fish.Biol 24, 415-425, [3] Hobday et al., (2016). Progress in Oceanography, 141, 227-238, [4] Olivier et al., (2020), Annual Review of Marine Science,13,313-342,[5] Smith et al., (2021) Science, 374(6566), eabj3593 [6] Gruber et al., (2021), Nature, 600 (7889), 395-407,[7] Boyce et al., (2020) Nat.Commun. 11, 2235,
-Task 1.1: MHWs Detection. Taking advantage of Mercator Ocean physical (MOP) models, surface and subsurface MHWs were detected over the Western Mediterranean. MHWs were detected following existing literature and MHWs detection algorithms. The following MHWs metrics were computed after detection: duration, intensity, frequency, vertical and spatial extension, number and of discrete events.
- Task 1.2: MOP validation during MHWs :The MOP-detected surface MHWs were compared with satellite-detected MHWs. Overall, the MOP-detected MHWs compare well to the satellite-detected MHWs in terms of duration, intensity, frequency and spatial extension and do not show any systematic bias.
-Task 1.3: MHWs characterisation: A K-means clustering method was applied to the MOP-detected MHWs to characterise them in terms of their intensity, duration and frequency. The outcome of this task is a map with the regionalization of the MHWs based on their belonging group and, therefore, their characteristics. Time series of MHWs spatial occurrences (% of pixels occupied by MHWs) for each group were generated allowing for statistics correlation with ecosystem time series.
Whitin WP2 (“MHWs and ecosystem”) the following tasks are in progress:
- Task 2.1: Assessment of the impact of each type of MHW on key biogeochemical parameters. A preliminary analysis was conducted in order to identify the most suitable biogeochemical oceanic model (MOB) to be used to investigate the impact of MHWs in biogeochemical parameters. The performance of the existing MOB models for the Mediterranean Sea was assessed by comparing the MOB outputs to chlorophyll data. The remainder of the task will be completed in the future by the fellow and by the PhD students from the IMARES group. Specifically, the impact of each type of MHWs on the primary production, oxygen, pH and stratification at the surface and subsurface will be quantified. Time series for each biogeochemical parameter will be contrasted with time series obtained for each MHWs group in task 1.3.
-Task 2.3: Assessment of the responses of marine ecosystems to different MHWs characteristics. This task has been initiated. The inputs to force the ecosystem models based on the MHW detection (WP1) have been produced and the model will run soon. Study cases will be selected based on the MHWs characteristics (intensity, duration, frequency, etc).