the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 29 Jan 2026
Technical note: tidal motions in the deep Mediterranean
Abstract. The Mediterranean Sea is known for its limited tidal motions. For example, surface barotropic tidal elevations have an amplitude of 0.1 m in the Northwestern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, these small tides are noticeable in temperature records at the 2500-m deep seafloor, but only under near-homogeneous conditions when buoyancy frequency N < f, the inertial frequency. After transfer of pressure to temperature units via the local adiabatic lapse rate, the observed internal-wave temperature signals may thus be corrected for 1.5x10-5-°C amplitude semidiurnal barotropic tides. The remaining baroclinic tides are embedded in the broad and featureless inertio-gravity wave band, with some energy enhancement near its boundaries, also under tenfold-larger energetic stratified water conditions.
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EC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-188', Bernadette Sloyan, 02 Mar 2026
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The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-188/egusphere-2026-188-EC1-supplement.pdfReplyCitation: https://doi.org/
10.5194/egusphere-2026-188-EC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on EC1', Hans van Haren, 03 Mar 2026
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>>>I thank the editor for the time to comment the manuscript. My replies are behind >>>
Review of manuscript
Technical note: tidal motions in the deep Mediterranean by Hans van Haren
The author analyses low tidal motions in the Mediterranean Sea. However, the author
distinguishes small tides in the temperature records at a depth of 2500-m near the bottom. This
happens only when the environmental conditions are near-homogeneous and the buoyancy
frequency N is lower than the inertial frequency. The observations were performed with a set of
almost 3000 precise temperature sensors. The author performs a transition of pressure to
temperature units using the local adiabatic lapse rate like the atmospheric one. The author detects
low amplitude semidiurnal barotropic tides.
I generally like the paper and recommend publication.
>>>Thank you for the appreciation.
Two remarks.
(1) It would be helpful to give a figure with a scheme of the experiment.
>>>A scheme of the experimental set-up is now given in the new Appendix A.
(2) A question to Fig. 1a. What if uncorrected temperature. Is this in situ temperature. And
theta is it potential temperature. Please explain. Low temperature increase with depth can be
found at larger depths, say 5000 m. In the case of 2500 m in the Mediterranean this requires
explanation.
>>>Yes, the ‘uncorrected’ temperature is the in situ temperature; with uncorrected ‘uncorrected for compression’ was meant. Conservative Temperature (upper case theta; TEOS-10) has indeed the same dynamical properties as potential temperature (lower case theta). Yes, a profile as plotted from 2000-2500 m in the Mediterranean has resemblance with much deeper profiles in the ocean. Good point. It may have to do with the lack of tides in the Mediterranean, and thus reduced turbulent mixing via internal wave breaking (by about a factor of 2 compared to the ocean; Wunsch and Ferrari, 2004). Also, the Mediterranean sea is an almost closed basin, nearly without connections to other basins whereby propagation from far away sources is likely reduced, in contrast with oceans. This is better explained in the text and figure caption.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-188-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on EC1', Hans van Haren, 03 Mar 2026
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