SEASONAL TO DECADAL VARIABILITY IN THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF THE BLACK SEA AND LEVANTINE BASIN AS INFERRED FROM SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING

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2016-12-10
Akpınar, Anıl
Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean (Levantine basin) have gone through a number of documented changes in the recent decades. Recently acquired satellite data document rapid warming, increased sea level and decreased chlorophyll-a (phytoplankton) in the Black Sea and Levantine basin. Aim of this study is to address warming in the Black Sea and Levantine basin, as well as to investigate the phytoplankton response to changing environmental conditions at seasonal to interannual timescales. In the first part of the study, sea surface temperature (SST) in the Black Sea and Levantine were investigated over the study period 1982-2012. Warming trends, thermal anomalies and results of an empirical orthogonal functions analysis (EOF) was used to interpret the spatiotemporal variability of SST in the Black Sea and Levantine basins. In the second part of the study, changes in Chlorophyll-a were investigated for the Black Sea and Levantine basin as well as its responses to changes in physical environment. EOF analysis were conducted on weekly datasets of chlorophyll-a (CHL-A), sea surface temperature (SST) and absolute dynamic topography (ADT) for 1998-2012. EOF analysis was utilized to investigate the variability at seasonal and interannual time scales. Response of CHL-A to SST and ADT as well as to riverine and heat fluxes were investigated. The first part of the study documented intense warming in the Black Sea and less intense warming in the Levantine basin, both displaying spatio-temporal variability. The second part of the study documented that the Black Sea chlorophyll-a decline as a result of changing wind pattern, eventually changing the intensity of the circulation, whereas in the Levantine basin, chlorophyll-a decline was linked to decreased winter convective mixing. This thesis documents the impacts of global change on physics and biology of the Black Sea and Levantine basin, providing an insight into possible consequences of global warming in the regional seas.

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Citation Formats
A. Akpınar, “SEASONAL TO DECADAL VARIABILITY IN THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF THE BLACK SEA AND LEVANTINE BASIN AS INFERRED FROM SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2016.