POEM: Physical Oceanography of the Eastern Miditerranean

Abstract

The Mediterranean as a whole communicates with the Atlantic Ocean through the narrow and shallow Gibraltar Strait. In recent years, scientific interest has been focused on the western Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar through the execution of the Western Mediterranean Circulation Experiment [La Violette, 1987] and the 1985–1986 Gibraltar Experiment [Kinder and Bryden, 1987]. These experiments and other, related investigations, however, do not involve the eastern part from the Strait of Sicily to the easternmost Levantine Basin. The most recent phenomenological materials available about this part of the Mediterranean are the studies by Lacombe and Tchernia [1960, 1972]. More recently, El‐Gindy and El‐Din [1986] produced an analysis of historical oceanographic data available at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, collected in surveys of the Eastern Mediterranean during 1960—1972. Finally, a general survey of past efforts and investigations has just been written [Malanotte‐Rizzoli and Hecht, 1987].