Decadal climatic anomalies in the Northern Adriatic Sea inferred from a new oceanographic data set.

In 1997, ARTEGIANI et al. depicted for the first time the seasonal climatology of the Adriatic Sea; they used the ATOS data set, formed by 5540 oceanographic stations collected over this continental basin from 1911 to 1980. Lately, two Italian Institutes working on the Adriatic Sea for long time, IBM and IRPEM, merged their recent data set for the northernmost part of the basin, obtaining 3600 new oceanographic stations, concentrated in an area where 809 ATOS stations were located. The new data were quality checked, and then a seasonal climatology was drawn as first analysis step. Comparison of the new climatology with the ATOS one showed significant differences, that could be explained, at least partially, with the climatic changes occurred on this area. In fact a significant air temperature increase was observed over northern Italy starting from 1988. Variations of the observed air temperature and Po river runoff qualitatively agree with sea surface temperature and salinity variations. A preliminary computation of heat fluxes based on ECMWF reanalysis confirms an increased heat flux to the Northern Adriatic Sea starting from 1988.