EVIDENCES OF THE EMT AND EMT-LIKE EVENTS ALONG THE EASTERN COAST OF AEGEAN SEA, IZMIR BAY EXAMPLE

Temperature, salinity and density time series provided by Izmir Bay monitoring studies are analyzed in order to examine the periods especially involving the EMT and EMT-like events causing big change in the water characteristics of the Aegean Sea. The main objective of this study is to find out the indication of these events in the Izmir Bay by analyzing the available oceanographic datasets for the period of 1991-2017 and to show the parallelism consisting between the isopycnal levels in the Izmir Bay and the phases of the upper layer circulation of the Ionian Sea. 1993 (EMT event), 2007-2009 (EMT-like event) and 2012 (abrupt reversal) are the years that high isopycnal levels were observed in the Izmir Bay and concurrently the upper layer circulation of the Ionian Sea was in anti-cyclonic phase. The important and remarkable thing is that such EMT and EMT-like or abrupt reversal events can be detected from the observations conducted in the bays and coastal area of eastern Aegean Sea.