Impact of Levantine Intermediate Water on the interannual variability of the Adriatic Sea based on simulations with a fine resolution ocean model

•We set-up a high resolution ocean model in the Adriatic Sea.•The model has very high vertical resolution in the top 60 m.•The model results show a high level of agreement with the observations.•Levantine Intermediate Water is important for dense water formation.

A high resolution set-up of a z-level ocean model has been implemented in the Adriatic Sea to investigate the impact of the Levantine Intermediate Water on the Adriatic Sea circulation and dense water formation. The period under investigation starts at the beginning of 2000 and ends at the end 2007. A twin experiment is performed in which the southern boundary conditions are derived from two different operational systems in the Mediterranean Sea. It is shown that the quantity and the characteristics of the Levantine Intermediate Water in the Mediterranean model introduced at the southern boundary may significantly impact the amount of the dense water formed in the Southern Adriatic and the accuracy of the model simulation even in the Northern Adriatic.