Modeling an unusual upwelling event observed along the western Adriatic coast in the summer 2003

Abstract

The goal of this research was to simulate and analyze the response of the Western Adriatic Current (WAC) to an abnormal event that occurred in the Adriatic Sea in mid-summer of 2003. At this time, a combination of extremely low discharge from the Po River and from other northwestern rivers caused by the prolonged dry season and the dominant Sirocco wind produced an ‘unusual’ upwelling and caused the WAC to reverse along the northern and central Italian coasts. The simulations employed a high-resolution, low dissipative version of the DieCAST circulation model that was initialized with monthly averaged temperature and salinity data and spun up with a use of climatological wind data. Numerical experiments were performed with the use of COAMPS wind stress and heat flux data. The model runs performed under Sirocco wind forcing in combination with low river discharge (a quarter of the climatic mean) revealed that such these conditions do trigger upwelling and the reversal of the WAC along the Italian coast. The upwelling relaxation caused by changes in the wind direction was also studied. Qualitative simulation results were in agreement with the observations by Poulain et al. (2004).