La climatología y la topografía del Estrecho de Gibraltar determinantes de las propiedades termohalinas del agua del Mar Mediterráneo.

Abstract

Recent studies on the water exchange through the Strait of Gibraltar and the properties of the Mediterranean waters are revised. The paper shows how the properties of the Mediterranean water come from two independent external causes: the climatology of the Mediterranean Sea and the topography of the Strait of Gibraltar, which puts limits to the exchanged flows and determines the residence and renewal time of the water inside the Mediterranean basin. The two-layer hydraulic control theory, which was successfully applied to the Strait during the last decades, along with the observed climatology over the basin predicts accurately (within 20%) the volume of the water exchange and the salinity of the Mediterranean water in spite of the oversimplification that the two-layer exchange model implicitly assumes. 43 J. G. Lafuente y F. C. Aldeanueva La climatología y la topografía del Estrecho... 1.