Hindcasting the Adriatic Sea surface temperature and salinity: A recent modeling experience

Abstract

Oceanographic model simulations of the Adriatic temperature and salinity fields for the year 2008 were compared against coastal Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) observations and satellite detected Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in order to evaluate the model hindcasting skills. To that end, the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) configured with horizontal resolution of 2 km and forced with 8 km resolution output from the atmospheric model ALADIN (Aire Limitée Adaptation Dynamique développement InterNational), was applied to the Adriatic Sea.

Temperature and salinity CTD measurements collected along the eastern Adriatic coast, within the framework of the Adriatic Sea Monitoring Program, exhibits correlation with model in the temperature field between 0.75 and 0.95, depending on the season/cruise, while for salinity those values are between 0.32 and 0.78. Comparison of the modeled and daily derived satellite SST for the whole 2008 year was made on each data pixel. Results show that the hindcasts are characterized with small model-to-data RMSE, namely with values in the North Adriatic 0.90 °C, in the Middle Adriatic 0.79 °C and in the South Adriatic 0.80 °C. There is a high correlation between modeled and satellite SST data with values in a range of 0.44 to 0.92, depending on month and region, with a value of 0.99 for all time records and in any of three regions.