January 3th, 2010

Smooth oceanographic changes observed with the New Year

The last days of the 2009 and the new days of the 2010 have remained relatively calm in the coastal area off Blanes, as seen from from the oceanographic point of view.

While most of us were out shopping and eating and drinking a lot, the observations at the OOOS station (Blanes canyon head) during 31 Dec up to 2 Jan, revealed, among others, a decreasing wind velocity by a half, from 14 to 7 m/sec.

The surface water currents have shown a quiet velocity around 15 cm/sec. Minimum air temperature dropped just by a couple of degrees from 11 to 9 C degrees. Irradiance at noon remained about the same.

What most changed this end of year was the atmospheric pressure. At the sea level, pressure jumped from a minimum of 990 atm to 1020 atm!

The sea surface is still loosing heat as its temperature is still getting lower (by about 0.2 C degrees in last three days). Below the surface, water continues mixing all its components out (plankton, nutrients, particules, etc) but it does not reach yet a maximum mixing level that will be soon produced by a phenomenon known as convective winter mixing.

What will come from now on regarding this marine environmental monitoring, is more or less well known. However, the New Year, as every new year, will bring to us new events and surprises! We hope to be there to detect them and measure them!

Cheers New Year 2010!