Impacts of Eastern Mediterranean Transient on marine biota: A review

The Eastern Mediterranean Transient (EMT) lasted from the late-1980s to the mid-1990s and appears as the major climatic perturbation of circulation and water mass properties of the Mediterranean in the past hundred years. About 20% of the waters below 1200 m depth horizon werere placed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea by younger waters of Aegean origin with an average formation rate (1.2 Sv) four times faster than the rate calculated for the Adriatic source waters before the occurrence of EMT. The consequences of the EMT continue also today and have spread in the Western Mediterranean basin. A variety of altered biological processes have been recorded in the pelagic realm of the Mediterranean Sea after the 'EMT' onset and this review discusses them critically and relates the triggering of these climatic phenomena in the future with the possible impacts on the marine biota.