Abstract
First rains of September 2014 and 2015 could be characterized as extreme events: from 1st to 3rd September 2014 heavy rains were recorded over western and northern Greece exceeding 50 mm in one day and reaching at places 100 mm; on the 10th of September 2015 precipitation exceeded 100 mm over the northwest part of the country. After both time periods, chlorophyll-α concentrations—a proxy for phytoplankton abundance—were increased over the related sea areas and in some cases doubled, even over the oligotrophic Ionian Sea. The meteorological characteristics of these events and possible factors responsible for their high intensity are examined, along with the potential capability for being operationally forecasted a few days before. The higher marine primary production that followed and was detected through chlorophyll-α concentrations using Ocean Color satellite data, is also assessed as result of the meteorological extreme events.
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Acknowledgments
Authors would like to thank ECMWF, Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, Met Office, NOA and HNMS for the data, as well as Dr. J. Kouroutzoglou for useful advices.
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Kotta, D., Kitsiou, D., Kassomenos, P. (2017). First Rains as Extreme Events Influencing Marine Primary Production. In: Karacostas, T., Bais, A., Nastos, P. (eds) Perspectives on Atmospheric Sciences. Springer Atmospheric Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-35095-0_37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-35095-0_37
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