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Regional Three-Dimensional Pathways of Water Parcels from a High-Resolution Model Reanalysis in the Western Mediterranean Sea

Regional three-dimensional pathways of water parcels from the surface to the ocean interior are investigated in a high-resolution realistic model simulation of the Western Mediterranean Sea. This simulation assimilates multi-platform observations from both satellite and in-situ measurements collected during the ONR CALYPSO experiment carried out north of the Balearic Islands in Winter-Spring 2022. This experiment provided high-resolution observations of temperature, salinity, currents, oxygen and chlorophyll fluorescence using eight gliders, several towed CTD instruments, Lagrangian floats, and more than 300 Lagrangian drifters. These observations are used here to constrain a 2km-resolution model reanalysis spanning a 5-month period from February to June 2022. Three-dimensional water pathways were then computed to characterize the path of parcels at different time scales in the model domain. An independent comparison against specific observations identifying patterns of subduction was performed, showing the realism of the simulated paths. A free-run nested simulation with 650m resolution was also implemented in a reduced area to evaluate the impact of the finer-scale features. The spatial and temporal variability of the vertical pathways are described and linked to the meso- and submesoscale ocean structures represented in the simulation. This numerical approach allowed us to map areas of subduction, evaluate their temporal evolution, quantify the export of surface parcels to depth, and obtain a first estimate of the relative contribution of mesoscale and submesocale ocean features to the vertical transports.