Description: Climate change investigation, protection of marine ecosystems and mitigation of natural risks are the main research objectives of the Levante Canyon Mooring (LCM), a deep submarine multidisciplinary observatory, installed in September 2019 in the Eastern Ligurian Sea (Lat 44°05.443'N, Long 009°29.900'E at 608 m depth), inside the Pelagos Sanctuary. The observatory consists of a stand-alone station, with an instrumented mooring line ending with a submerged buoy. It operates in delayed-mode and is equipped with sensors that measure physical and biogeochemical parameters continuously and it is expected to provide data in the long-term. Temperature and salinity monitoring is carried out at three depth levels (about 80, 335 and 580 m depth), while turbidity is recorded at 580 m depth. LCM is also equipped with a sediment trap and two acoustic current profilers, able to measure direction and speed of currents in nearly the entire water column.Data will be used to measure flux of sediments, nutrients and organic matter and to better understand the hydrodynamic and physical conditions of the Levante Canyon, which hosts valuable and vulnerable ecosystems, such as the deep-living cold-water corals, identified by IIM and ENEA in 2014, near the LCM mooring site. The LCM site is also located in an area where surface currents are monitored in near-real time by the CNR's High Frequency Radar network, allowing data integration from multiplatform observations.The project, co-financed by the Liguria Region, is coordinated by the DLTM in strict collaboration, in terms of human resources, infrastructures and instruments with the associated public research bodies (CNR, ENEA, INGV) and with the IIM. The project also includes the next deployment of a cabled station in the Gulf of La Spezia (10 m depth, less than 100 m far from the coast) that will monitor the gravimetric field, temperature and marine current. The main objective of the coastal station is to provide a test site for new instruments and sensors.

Description: Published

Description: Online

Description: 3A. Geofisica marina e osservazioni multiparametriche a fondo mare

Description: From recent ISMAR Institute investigations a very high density of Antropogenic Marine Debries (AMD) has been assessed in the North Tirrenyan sea. Floating debris, both macro and micro, results to have very high concentrations, comparable or even higher than the one found in Pacific ocean and in the other identified “trash island” (Suaria et. al. 2016). Parallel surveys performed along the coasts of Marine Protected Areas of the Pelagos Sanctuary, located in North Tyrrenian sea between Tuscany, Liguria and French, reveal an uneven distribution of beached marine litter: higher concentrations are in correspondence of river mouths, or related with fisheries and aquaculture activities. The most interesting outcome of this research is that trash densities are higher especially in those protected areas where access is forbidden to tourists (Giovacchini 2016). In these areas, according to preliminary data of a still ongoing investigation (Merlino 2016), the percentage of microplastics, too, seems to be higher than those of neighbouring areas outside the parks. The reason of these correlations can lie in the sporadic cleaning of non-touristy beaches, from which the resulting accumulation and fragmentation of the trash. To study the mechanisms of transport and accumulation of AMDs in such areas we have devised a dispersion experiment to be carried out in March 2017 in San Rossore Regional Park, a strictly protected area (Pisa, Italy), located at the mouth of the Arno River, one of the major Italian rivers, running through the most densely populated and industrialized area of Tuscany. The experiment is unusual in that uses mini eco-drifters, devoid of transmission mechanisms and fully biodegradable. These eco-drifters are cork disks, self-made with the involvement of volunteers and high school students (citizenscience). These eco-drifters will be delivered at Arno’s mouth and followed by drones equipped with camera in the initial phase of their dispersion, and then recovered, some days after, by volunteers / students, in the large coastline around the mouth of Arno. Thus, pictures and movies taken by the drone cameras, together with records of spatial and temporal accumulation rates of the eco-drifters, shall give us information about the role of local currents in AMD deposition in the studied area. All collected information will be used to validate Lagrangian models describing local circulation. This is the first Italian dispersion experiment involving not only Research Centers (ISMAR and INGV), but also five Scholastic Institutes, two Educational Organizations (LABTER and TOSCIENCE) and a Regional Park. Citizenscience has a relevant scientific role in this experiment, starting from the eco-drifters construction to their recollection, but it represents also an effective way to raise young public awareness on the vulnerability of our coasts and marine environment. In the past years ISMAR has undertaken several marine litter monitoring programs supported by citizenscience (Merlino et al. 2015), also recounted through a Documentary (MARINE RUBBISH. A Challenge to share). This approach has proven to be very effective from the educational, social and scientific points of view.

Description: Published

Description: Vienna

Description: 4A. Oceanografia e clima

Description: A 2-year dataset of a stand-alone mooring, deployed in November 2020 down the Levante Canyon in the eastern Ligurian Sea, is presented. The Levante Canyon Mooring (LCM) is a deep submarine multidisciplinary observatory positioned at 608 m depth in a key ecosystem area. The Levante Canyon hosts a valuable and vulnerable ecosystem of deep-living cold-water corals (CWCs), studied and monitored since 2013 through integrated mapping of the seabed and water column. The 2-year dataset, acquired on the mooring and presented here (data from November 2020 to October 2022), includes measurements conducted with both current meters and conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) probes and provides information about the hydrodynamics and thermohaline properties across almost the entire water column. The observatory is still ongoing, and the dataset is regularly updated. All the described data are publicly available from https://doi.org/10.17882/92236 (Borghini et al., 2022). They must therefore be preserved and are of considerable scientific interest.

Description: This research has been supported by the Distretto Ligure delle Tecnologie Marine (DLTM) through funding obtained from Regione Liguria (PAR-FSC 2007–2013 funds) and by institutional funds from Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Scienze Marine (CNR-ISMAR), Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile (ENEA), Istituto Idrografico della Marina (IIM) and Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV).

Description: Published

Description: 1933–1946

Description: OSA4: Ambiente marino, fascia costiera ed Oceanografia operativa

Description: JCR Journal

Description: © The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Tarry, D., Ruiz, S., Johnston, T., Poulain, P., Özgökmen, T., Centurioni, L., Berta, M., Esposito, G., Farrar, J., Mahadevan, A., & Pascual, A. Drifter observations reveal intense vertical velocity in a surface ocean front. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(18), (2022): e2022GL098969, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022gl098969.

Description: Measuring vertical motions represent a challenge as they are typically 3–4 orders of magnitude smaller than the horizontal velocities. Here, we show that surface vertical velocities are intensified at submesoscales and are dominated by high frequency variability. We use drifter observations to calculate divergence and vertical velocities in the upper 15 m of the water column at two different horizontal scales. The drifters, deployed at the edge of a mesoscale eddy in the Alboran Sea, show an area of strong convergence (urn:x-wiley:00948276:media:grl64766:grl64766-math-0001(f)) associated with vertical velocities of −100 m day−1. This study shows that a multilayered-drifter array can be an effective tool for estimating vertical velocity near the ocean surface.

Description: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Departmental Research Initiative CALYPSO under program officers Terri Paluszkiewicz and Scott Harper. The authors' ONR Grant No. are as follows: DT, SR, AM, and AP N000141613130, TMSJ N000146101612470, PP N000141812418, TO N000141812138, LRC N000141712517, and N00014191269, MB and GE N000141812782 and N000141812039, and JTF N000141812431.