Eastern Mediterranean Chemical Oceanography

The interest in the Mediterranean climate and hydrological balance is motivated by the convergence of scientific, environmental social and economic issues in this region. The global anthropogenic processes and the human activity surrounding the Mediterranean Sea has a large impact on the biology, chemistry and sedimentology of the surface and deep waters of all basins of the Mediterranean and its coastal areas. Basic information is missing because the relevant scientific communities have centered their research efforts elsewhere while considering the Mediterranean region to be stable. However, in the last decade it became clear that this is not the case.

Currently we routinely deploy gliders in the Eastern Mediterranean. These autonomous, unmanned and underwater vehicles are equipped with capabilities to continuously measure physical and chemical parameters of seawater to depths of 700m. it is used to measure dissolved oxygen, methane, chlorophyll, temperature, salinity and temperature as well as organic compounds which are associated with gas and oil drilling contamination. It operates in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research.