SEA WATER TEMPERATURE OBSERVATION AND SIMULATION IN THE CASPIAN SEA

The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest enclosed water body in both area (380,000 km2) and volume (78,000 km3). It contains 44% of the global volume of inland waters. It has dimensions of 1300 km in length from north to south and width of 200–450 km from east to west. The water depth of the Caspian Sea reaches to more than 1000 m in the southern areas. Based on the physical oceanographic studies, the temperature of the sea water varies with the location as well as along the water column. Previous studies and field observations show that the temperature of the surface mixed layers varies along the day and night and also in different seasons; while in the deep sea, the temperature only has small seasonal variations. In addition, due to approximately 1200 km north-south extension of the Caspian Sea, there is a horizontal variation of the temperature between northern and southern parts of the sea [1-4]. The Iranian Port and Maritime Organization (PMO) initiated a project, led by Pouya Tarh Pars Consulting Engineers to examine the physical processes along the Iranian sector of the Caspian Sea through the use of field measurements and numerical modeling. In this paper the results of these studies with regard to sea water temperature is presented.