Although the Lesnoy eddy occurs frequently and is variable in its location, form and size, it is not strictly attributed to any form of the coastline off the base of the Curonian Spit, where the coastline changes direction from W-E to a SW-NE. The Lesnoy eddy does not form an obvious vortex signature on satellite images, and although vortex-like structures (mostly in form of a hook) in this area can be identified on MODIS images, even if this is relatively rare. The stability of the Lesnoy eddy in time and its influence on coastal processes should be further investigated. The Lesnoy eddy as

well as sub-mesoscale eddies near the central part of the Curonian Spit have different properties and dimensions selleck kinase inhibitor in every ABT 199 case, and it is probable that the satellite imagery used here has only provided snapshots of the development of coastal eddies of different origins. The authors express their thanks to LUKOIL AB, which financed monitoring activities in the area of D6 Oil Field Marine Platform (Dr V. V. Sivkov – coordinator), the CODAR measurements off the northern shore of the Sambian Peninsula (carried out by V. V. Gorbatskiy, A. N. Babakov, E.S. Gurova over 2 years), and the meteorological measurements at platform

D6 (processed by Zh. I. Stont). Detailed analysis of meteorological conditions was possible only due to the kind input from Dr A. Lehmann, who shared the results of BSIOM model. The authors thank NASA for free open access to MODIS data, and ESA (via project C1P-3424, with personal thanks to A. Yu. Ivanov) for providing ASAR satellite imagery for this research. The preparation of this paper was

partly supported by grants No. 11-05-00674 and 12-05-90807-mol_rf_nr of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The authors are very grateful to the reviewers for their valuable comments, and to Dr Margaret Carlisle for the language corrections: their inputs improved the quality of the manuscript a lot. “
“Optical shallowness implies that the water-leaving Dichloromethane dehalogenase radiance Lwn of a basin depends both on the optical properties of the water body and on the light backscattered from its bed and/or from bottom sediments resuspended by bottom currents. The latter factors hamper the retrieval of chlorophyll from Lwn measured in shallow basins but they can be useful for the remote sensing of near-bottom water flows ( Karabashev et al. 2009). The thickness of the layer from which radiance originates equation(1) Zor(λ)=1/Kd(λ),Zorλ=1/Kdλ, where Kd(λ) is the coefficient of daylight attenuation in water at a wavelength λ ( Gordon & McCluney 1975). Kd at λ = 470 nm ranges from 0.02 m− 1 in oligotrophic waters to 1 m− 1 or higher in ultra-eutrophic ocean areas or inland seas. Hence, an optically shallow aquatic area can be as deep as 50 m.