Modeling the Messinian Salinity Crisis:
This page discusses the
results of the averaged winter circulation. Locally, the changes in
the sea level of the Mediterranean cause changes in temperature,
precipitation, and wind fields. The most striking response to the LS
experiment is a distinct warming of the Mediterranean basin during
the winter (Fig. 2). As air subsides into the lowered sea it is
heated adiabatically. Heating caused by
the air being compressed raises the air temperature by more than 10
K. However, when the Mediterranean sea is completely dried up and
covered with land, the basin isn’t warmed as much in the winter.
This is due to differe
nces
in the heat capacity, which is much less
for land than water, and the diurnal cycle.
The heat capacity is just the amount of energy required to raise the
temperature of a substance one degree. It takes much more energy to
raise the temperature of the ocean surface that it does to raise the
temperature of the land surface. During the day the land surface
will heat up rapidly, but at night it will rapidly cool down. Thus,
taking the average will get rid of this maxima and minima and the
difference between the LL and UL from the US is relatively small
compared to the change between the US and LS.
Figure 2: The difference in the Surface
Temperature between the three cases (LS, LL, and UL) and the control
(US).
