Abstract
In this short note we describe and discuss an unusual field of small-scale baroclinic vortices, observed through CTD casts in a small geographical zone (∼6 × 9 km) near the East Sicilian coast of the Ionian Sea (Eastern Mediterranean). The space dimension of these vortices is ∼2 km in the horizontal plane while the Rossby internal radius of deformation is Rd ≈ 7 km; the vertical dimension is ∼80 m; the velocities reach ∼0.2 m s−1 and the Rossby number ε ∼ 1. Their relation with known theoretical models, in particular with hetons, shelf-break trapped mushrooms and baroclinic modons, is briefly discussed.
