Heat fluxes between the Guadalquivir river and the Gulf of Cádiz Continental Shelf

An 18-year time series of daily sea surface temperature of Gulf of Cadiz and an 18-month time series of temperature collected in the vicinity of the Guadalquivir estuary mouth have been analyzed to investigate the heat exchange between the estuary and the adjacent continental shelf. The first time identifies a continental shelf area where seasonal thermal oscillation signal (amplitudes and phase) changes abruptly. In order to explain this anomaly, the second data set allows a description of thermal fluctuations in a wide range of frequencies and an estimation of the upstream heat budget of the Guadalquivir estuary. Results show that high frequency thermal signal, diurnal and semidiurnal, and water flux signal through Guadalquivir mouth, mainly semidiurnal, apparently interact randomly to give a small exchange of thermal energy at high frequency. There is no trace, at the estuary's mouth, of daily heat exchanges with intertidal mudflats probably because it tends to cancel on daily time scales. Results also show that fluctuations of estimated air-sea fluxes force fluctuations of temperature in a quite homogeneous estuarine, with a delay of 20 days. The along-channel thermal energy gradient reaches magnitudes of 300-400 J m-4 near the mouth during the summer and winter and drives the estuary-shelf exchange of thermal energy at seasonal scale. Particularly, the thermal heat imported by the estuary from the shelf area during late fall-winter-early spring of 2008/2009 is balanced by the thermal heat that the estuary exports to the shelf area during late spring-summer of 2008. In summary, Guadalquivir river removes/imports excess of thermal energy towards/from the continental shelf seasonally, as a mechanism to accommodate excess of heat from one side respect to the other side.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Autoridad Portuaria de Sevilla (APS

3D hydrodynamic model as a tool for more efficient port management and operations.

Ports have been attempting to increase their competitiveness by enhancing their productivity and operate in a more environmentally friendly way. The Port of Seville is located in the Guadalquivir River in the south of Spain and it is the unique Spanish inland port. The estuary has generated and is still generating conflicts of interests. The access channel to the port is being periodically dredged, the natural course has been anthropologically modified several times, original salt marshes have been transformed to grow rice and approximately one-fourth of the total surface of the estuary is now part of two protected areas, one of them is a UNESCO_MAB Biosphere Reserve. Despite its socio-economic and environmental significance there is a surprising lack of scientific and technical information about the environmental interactions between the port activities and the Guadalquivir estuary stakeholders. A 3D hydrodynamic model has been developed to study the tidal regime, water circulation, temperature and salinity distributions, flooding areas and the sediment dynamics in the estuary. The model output has been validated with in situ current speed, direction, water elevation and also with temperature and salinity measurements. Good agreement between modeled and real measurements have been obtained. Our preliminary results show that the vessel traffic management could be improved by using the tidal elevations and currents calculated by the model in the whole estuary. The interactions among the port activities (mainly due of changes in the sediments dynamics), the watershed management and the saline intrusion evolution will be studied in detail. 3D Hydrodynamic Modelling provide spatially explicit information on the key variables governing the dynamics of estuarine areas. The numerical model is a powerful tool to effectively guide the management and operations of ports located in a complex socio-ecological systems.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

On the seasonality of waters below the seasonal thermocline in the Gulf of Cádiz

This work examines the seasonal thermohaline variability in the Gulf of Cádiz (SW Iberian Peninsula) based on 2009–2020 repeated hydrographic observations. Subsurface water types are assorted within the mixing triangle formed by Mediterranean and Eastern North Atlantic Central Waters (ENACW). A sharp interface between 400-500 m depth separates the saline Mediterranean Overflow Waters (MOW) from the ENACW salinity minimum siting atop. The water column is warmer and more saline in winter (cooler, fresher in summer). Maximum differences of up to 0.6 ∘C and 0.15 emanate from the ENACW/MOW interface. Changes appear related to the wind-driven seasonal alternation of vertical displacement of isopycnals and poleward-equatorward transports. Upwelling-favorable winds in summer steer positive Ekman pumping velocities, which seem responsible for cooling over the ENACW salinity minimum. Below, the warm, saline signal of subtropical waters from the Azores current is attenuated by the summer approach of cooler, fresher waters from the Portugal Current system. The change of sign of Ekman pumping in winter suggests subsidence of isopycnals and warming/salinification under the seasonal thermocline. Seasonal thermohaline changes of waters leaving the Mediterranean Sea are insufficient to explain the variations under the ENACW/MOW interface. Rather, variability of Atlantic waters entrained by the overflow seem to dictate these differences.Postprint2,08

Numerical modeling of three-dimensional stratified tidal flow over Camarinal Sill, Strait of Gibraltar

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C12026, doi:10.1029/2011JC007093.The baroclinic response to barotropic tidal forcing in the Camarinal Sill area, within the Strait of Gibraltar, is investigated with a three-dimensional, fully nonlinear, nonhydrostatic numerical model. The aim of numerical efforts was the assessment of three-dimensional effects, which are potentially significant in the area because of rather irregular bottom topography, variable background stratification, and complex structure of barotropic tides. Model results reveal a complex baroclinic response under relatively moderate flood tidal currents, which includes the formation of internal hydraulic jumps upstream of the sill, internal cross waves close to the channel walls, and a plunging pycnocline at the lee side of the sill crest. These structures exhibit significant cross-channel spatial dependence and may appear to be aligned together across the channel. This fact makes their identification difficult from the surface pattern captured by remote sensing images. Under strong barotropic forcing (spring tides) the upstream hydraulic jumps are shifted to the lee side of Camarinal Sill, where a single internal hydraulic jump is formed. Significant first- and second-mode hydraulic jumps are also generated near smaller secondary sills in Tangier basin, thus extending the occurrence of intense water mixing and energy dissipation to other zones of the strait.This work is a contribution to the Spanishfunded National Project INGRES-2 (CTM2006-02326). Partial financial support from Acción Complementaria CTM2009-05810/E (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and project P08-RNM-3738 from Plan Andaluz de Investigación (Andalucia regional government) is acknowledged.2012-06-1

Circulation of water masses through the Ibiza Channel

Publicado

The Mediterranean outflow in the Strait of Gibraltar and its connection with upstream conditions in the Alborán Sea

The present study addresses the hypothesis that the Western Alborán Gyre in the Alborán Sea (the westernmost Mediterranean basin adjacent to the Strait of Gibraltar) influences the composition of the outflow through the Strait of Gibraltar. The process invoked is that strong and well-developed gyres help to evacuate the Western Mediterranean Deep Water from the Alborán basin, thus increasing its presence in the outflow, whereas weak gyres facilitate the outflow of Levantine and other intermediate waters. To this aim, in situ observations collected at the Camarinal (the main) and Espartel (the westernmost) sills of the strait have been analysed along with altimetry data, which were employed to obtain a proxy of the strength of the gyre. An encouraging correlation of the expected sign was observed between the time series of potential temperature at the Espartel Sill, which is shown to keep information on the outflow composition, and the proxy of the Western Alborán Gyre, suggesting the correctness of the hypothesis, although the weakness of the involved signals does not allow for drawing definitive conclusions

Steric and mass-induced sea level variations in the Mediterranean Sea revisited

The total sea level variation (SLV) is the combination of steric and mass␣induced SLV, whose exact shares are key to understanding the oceanic response to climate system changes. Total SLV can be observed by radar altimetry satellites such as TOPEX/POSEIDON and Jason 1/2. The steric SLV can be computed through temperature and salinity profiles from in situ measurements or from ocean general circulation models (OGCM), which can assimilate the said observations. The mass-induced SLV can be estimated from its time-variable gravity (TVG) signals. We revisit this problem in the Mediterranean Sea estimating the observed, steric, and mass-induced SLV, for the latter we analyze the latest TVG data set from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission launched in 2002, which is 3.5 times longer than in previous studies, with the application of a two-stage anisotropic filter to reduce the noise in high-degree and -order spherical harmonic coefficients. We confirm that the intra-annual total SLV are only produced by water mass changes, a fact explained in the literature as a result of the wind field around the Gibraltar Strait. The steric SLV estimated from the residual of “altimetry minus GRACE” agrees in phase with that estimated from OGCMs and in situ measurements, although showing a higher amplitude. The net water fluxes through both the straits of Gibraltar and Sicily have also been estimated accordingly.This work was elaborated during the stay of the first author at the National Central University of Taiwan, thanks to a grant from the Generalitat Valenciana, Spain. Jean-Paul Boy is currently visiting NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, with a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship (PIOF-GA-2008-221753). This work was partly funded by two Spanish projects from MICIN, ESP2006-11357, and AYA2009-07981 and one from Generalitat Valenciana (ACOMP2009/031)

Compilation of parameterized seismogenic sources in Iberia for the SHARE European-scale seismic source model.

Abstract: SHARE (Seismic Hazard Harmonization in Europe) is an EC-funded project (FP7) that aims to evaluate European seismic hazards using an integrated, standardized approach. In the context of SHARE, we are compiling a fully-parameterized active fault database for Iberia and the nearby offshore region. The principal goal of this initiative is for fault sources in the Iberian region to be represented in SHARE and incorporated into the source model that will be used to produce seismic hazard maps at the European scale. The SHARE project relies heavily on input from many regional experts throughout the Euro-Mediterranean region. At the SHARE regional meeting for Iberia, the 2010 Working Group on Iberian Seismogenic Sources (WGISS) was established; these researchers are contributing to this large effort by providing their data to the Iberian regional integrators in a standardized format. The development of the SHARE Iberian active fault database is occurring in parallel with IBERFAULT, another ongoing effort to compile a database of active faults in the Iberian region. The SHARE Iberian active fault database synthesizes a wide range of geological and geophysical observations on active seismogenic sources, and incorporates existing compilations (e.g., Cabral, 1995; Silva et al., 2008), original data contributed directly from researchers, data compiled from the literature, parameters estimated using empirical and analytical relationships, and, where necessary, parameters derived using expert judgment. The Iberian seismogenic source model derived for SHARE will be the first regional-scale source model for Iberia that includes fault data and follows an internationally standardized approach (Basili et al., 2008; 2009). This model can be used in both seismic hazard and risk analyses and will be appropriate for use in Iberian- and European-scale assessments

Transcription, indexing and automatic analysis of judicial declarations from phonetic representations and techniques of forensic linguistics

Recientes avances tecnológicos han permitido mejorar los procesos judiciales para la búsqueda de información en los expedientes judiciales asociados a un caso. Sin embargo, cuando técnicos y peritos deben revisar pruebas almacenadas en vídeos y fragmentos de audio, se ven obligados a realizar una búsqueda manual en el documento multimedia para localizar la parte que desean revisar, lo cual es una tarea tediosa y que consume bastante tiempo. Para poder facilitar el desempeño de los técnicos, el presente proyecto consiste en un sistema que permite la transcripción e indexación automática de contenido multimedia basado en tecnologías de deep-learning en entornos de ruido y con múltiples interlocutores, así como la posibilidad de realizar análisis de lingüística forense sobre los datos para ayudar a los peritos a analizar los testimonios de modo que se aporten evidencias sobre la veracidad del mismo.Recent technological advances have made it possible to improve the search for information in the judicial files of the Ministry of Justice associated with a trial. However, when judicial experts examine evidence in multimedia files, such as videos or audio fragments, they must manually search the document to locate the fragment at issue, which is a tedious and time-consuming task. In order to ease this task, we propose a system that allows automatic transcription and indexing of multimedia content based on deep-learning technologies in noise environments and with multiple speakers, as well as the possibility of applying forensic linguistics techniques to enable the analysis of witness statements so that evidence on its veracity is provided.Este proyecto ha sido financiado por el Instituto de Fomento de la Región de Murcia con fondos FEDER dentro del proyecto con referencia 2018.08.ID+I.0025