Regional circulation patterns of Mediterranean Outflow  Water near the Iberian and African continental slopes

de Pascual-Collar, Álvaro; G. Sotillo, Marcos; Levier, Bruno; Aznar, Roland; Lorente, Pablo; Amo-Baladrón, Arancha; Álvarez-Fanjul, Enrique

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-565-2019

Articles | Volume 15, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-565-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS):...

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-565-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 3

Research article

|

27 May 2019

Research article |

| 27 May 2019

Regional circulation patterns of Mediterranean Outflow Water near the Iberian and African continental slopes

Álvaro de Pascual-Collar, Marcos G. Sotillo, Bruno Levier, Roland Aznar, Pablo Lorente, Arancha Amo-Baladrón, and Enrique Álvarez-Fanjul

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Final revised paper (published on 27 May 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 09 Jan 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of manuscript "Regional circulation patterns of Mediterranean Outflow Water near the Iberian and African continental slopes" by Pascual-Collar et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Mar 2019
- AC1: 'Point-by-point response to Referee#1', Álvaro de Pascual Collar, 04 Apr 2019
RC2: 'Review of the paper entitle: “Regional circulation patterns of Mediterranean Outflow Water near the Iberian and African continental slopes”', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Mar 2019
- AC2: 'Point-by-point response to Referee#2', Álvaro de Pascual Collar, 04 Apr 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Álvaro de Pascual Collar on behalf of the Authors (04 Apr 2019) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Apr 2019) by Marina Tonani

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 Apr 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (25 Apr 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript "Regional circulation patterns of Mediterranean Outflow Water near the Iberian and African continental slopes" by Pascual-Collar et al. improves over the previous version. The authors have properly addressed most of my remarks and have accounted for my suggestions. Therefore I can recommend the manuscript for publication subject to technical corrections. I recommend that authors provide a thorough check of the manuscript to minimize the appearance of typos (below I provide a list, not exhaustive).

P2L29 Deniault
P3L31-32: Delete the sentence "The Western extend of the plains is limited by the Azores-Portugal Rise", as it is repeating what is written in the P3L30.
P4L16: Carracedo, et al 2014
P4L18: Fucso
P4L31 does not counts
P5L11 "Mixing PROCESSES...HAS been studied"
P6L16 "FORMULAE...IS used"
P9L11 Carracedo et al.
P9L12 Carracedo et al.
P11L33 Km
P12L5 water mas
P19L22 van Haken
P20L10 Incomplete reference, which is not cited in the text

Additionally, I would like to share with authors a thought regarding the interesting discussion on the potential influence of the MOW variability at the Strait of Gibraltar on interannual variability of salinity signal at mid-depths in the Horseshoe basin. Authors may consider it useful to be included in their discussion.

Authors cite previous studies supporting the hypothesis that the interannual variability at the Horseshow basin is not (or weakly) related to changes in MWS properties. However, the interesting issue here is to check if the high resolution CMEMS-IBI analysis also support that view. In this regard, authors have decided to compare the Horseshoe basin space-averaged salinity time series to that of a Cape S. Vincent meridional section (Fig. 6a) instead of comparing it directly to the outflow time series at the Strait of Gibraltar, which can be readily calculated from model output.

In my view, the chosen comparison has to be carefully considered. Authors are comparing a quantity averaged over a large area (2D) with an average along a section (1D). Both time-series show a different behaviour, with CVS presenting higher frequency variability, while GBB+ABB average is much smoother: this can be a consequence of the averaging over a large area, resulting in filtering the higher frequency variability. This could partially explain the low correlation between both series.

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (26 Apr 2019) by Marina Tonani

AR by Álvaro de Pascual Collar on behalf of the Authors (30 Apr 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

The Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) is a dense water mass originated in the Gibraltar Straight. The CMEMS IBI ocean reanalysis is used to provide a detailed view of the circulation and mixing processes of MOW near the Iberian and African Continental slopes. This work emphasizes the relevance of the complex bathymetric features defining the circulation and variability processes of MOW in this region.