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In the marine environment, complete datasets describing the surface layer and the vertical structure of the Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer (MABL), through its entire depth, are less frequent than over land, due to the high cost of measuring campaigns. During the seven days of the Ligurian Air-Sea Interaction Experiment (LASIE), organized by the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC) in the Mediterranean Sea, extensive in situ and remote sensing measurements were collected from instruments placed on a spar buoy and a ship. Standard surface meteorological measurements were collected by meteorological sensors mounted on the buoy ODAS Italia1 located in the centre of the Gulf of Genoa. The evolution of the height (zi) of the MABL was monitored using radiosondes and a ceilometer on board of the N/O Urania. Here, we present the database and an uncommon case study of the evolution of the vertical structure of the MABL, observed by two independent measuring systems: the ceilometer and radiosondes. Following the changes of surface flow conditions, in a sequence of onshore – offshore – onshore wind direction shifting episodes, during the mid part of the campaign, the overall structure of the MABL changed. Warm and dry air from land advected over a colder sea, induced a stably stratified Internal Boundary Layer (IBL) and a consequent change in the structure of the vertical profiles of potential temperature and relative humidity.

For the first time it was possible to investigate a still poorly known region of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Libyan continental margin. An oceanographic cruise, performed during summer 2006, revealed an important and novel feature: a dense vein flowing along the continental slope. The paper describes the vein evolution with some insights on its dynamic and furnishes an estimate of its transport, which results to be comparable with the Adriatic Deep Water production rate. The cascading into a steep canyon which incises the continental shelf suggests that the vein may play an important role in ventilating the deep layers of the Ionian Sea.

Since numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are usually used to force ocean circulation models, it is important to investigate their skill in reproducing surface meteorological parameters in open sea conditions. Near-surface meteorological data (air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction) have been acquired from several sensors deployed on an offshore large spar buoy in the Ligurian Sea (Northern Mediterranean Sea) from February to December 2000. The buoy collected 7857 valid records out of 8040 during 335 days at sea. These observations have been compared with data from NWP models and specifically, the outputs of the ECMWF analysis in the two grid points closest to the buoy position. Hourly data acquired by the buoy have been undersampled to fit the data set of the model composed by values computed at the four synoptic hours. For each mentioned meteorological parameter an analysis has been performed by evaluating instantaneous synoptic differences, distributions, daily and annual variations and related statistics. The comparison shows that the model reproduces correctly the baric field while significant differences result for the other variables, which are more affected by local conditions. This suggests that the observed discrepancies may be due to the poor resolution of the model that probably is not sufficient to appropriately discriminate between land and ocean surfaces in a small basin such as the Ligurian Sea and to take into account local peculiarities. The use of time- and space-averaged model data reduces the differences with respect to the in situ observations, thus making the model data usable for analysis with minor requirements about time and space resolution. Although this comparison is strongly limited and we cannot exclude measurement errors, its results suggest a great caution in the use of the model data, especially at high frequency resolution. They may lead to incorrect estimates of atmospheric forcing into ocean circulation models, causing important errors in those areas, such as the Mediterranean Sea, where ocean circulation is strongly coupled with atmosphere and its high variability. Key words. Oceanography; general (marginal and semiclosed seas; marine meteorology; numerical modelling)

Some important climatic features of the Mediterranean Sea stand out from an analysis of the systematic discrepancies between direct measurements of longwave radiation budget and predictions obtained by the most widely used bulk formulae. In particular, under clear-sky conditions the results show that the surface values of both air temperature and humidity over the Mediterranean Sea are larger than those expected over an open ocean with the same amount of net longwave radiation. Furthermore, the twofold climatic regime of the Mediterranean region strongly affects the downwelling clear-sky radiation. This study suggests that a single bulk formula with constant numerical coefficients is unable to reproduce the fluxes at the surface for all the seasons.Key words: Meteorology and Atmospheric dynamics (radiative processes) – Oceanography: general (marginal and semienclosed seas; marine meteorology)