SE Levantine Basin, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, 31 to 35° N - 32 to 33° E

Salinity of the water column; Temperature of the water column

Bathythermographs

The EU funded project Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot project (hereafter MFSPP) main objective is to build the forecasting system for the physical state of the sea (3D currents, salinity and temperature). A ship of opportunity program, VOS work package providing XBT profiles to be assimilated in a forecast model, sampled the Mediterranean upper thermocline thermal structure from September 1999 to December 2000. In the framework of this WP a total of 17 XBT cruises were carried out between September 1999 to June 2000 along the VOS track Limassol -Port Said, in the SE Levantine Basin, on board the Cyprus VOS Princesa Victoria and Princesa Marissa of the Louis Cruise Lines. The first 3 XBT cruises were carried out every second week. A total of 360 T4 XBTs good profiles down to 460m, were obtained during the above XBT cruises. More than 150 decimated XBT profiles where transmitted in NRT to NRC-DCA through ARGOS, while in addition the entire data set , full vertical resolution for each cruise was delivered through the internet, to NRC-DCA within a 2 day time window. The XBT data were subject to QC procedures following the requirements of the MFSPP project.

Cyprus Oceanography Center
University of Cyprus P.O. BOX 20537
Nicosia

1678
Cyprus