Analysis of the edge plasma fluctuation in several confinement devices reveals the self-similar character of the fluctuations through the presence of long-range time correlations. These results show that the tail of the autocorrelation function decays as a power law for time lags longer than the decorrelation time and as long as times on the order of the particle diffusion time. The algebraic decay of the long-range time correlations is consistent with plasma transport characterized by self-organized criticality.

Fluctuation‐induced fluxes have a bursty character. As a consequence, a significant part of the total particle flux is carried out by sporadic, large transport bursts. The local flux distribution function is consistent with a near‐Gaussian character of the fluctuations. The radial dependence of the statistical properties of plasma fluctuations and induced fluxes have been investigated in the plasma boundary region of the TJ‐I tokamak [I. García‐Cortés et al., Phys. Fluids B 4, 4007 (1992)] and the TJ‐IU torsatron [E. Ascasibar et al., in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Research, Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, Seville (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, in press)]. There is a striking similarity between the statistical properties of turbulent transport in both devices.

The probability distribution function of the turbulence-induced particle flux at the plasma edge has distinct functional forms over two distinct ranges of time scales. One range corresponds to the fluctuation time scales and the other one is the mesoscale range: time scales between the turbulence decorrelation and confinement time. In the second range, the probability distribution function is self-similar and essentially has only the outward flux tail. This structure reflects some of the mechanisms of the underlying turbulence.

20 pages, 16 figures, 6 tables, supplementary material https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2017.09.004The RADMED project is devoted to the implementation and maintenance of a multidisciplinary monitoring system around the Spanish Mediterranean waters. This observing system is based on periodic multidisciplinary cruises covering the coastal waters, continental shelf and slope waters and some deep stations (>2000 m) from the Westernmost Alboran Sea to Barcelona in the Catalan Sea, including the Balearic Islands. This project was launched in 2007 unifying and extending some previous monitoring projects which had a more reduced geographical coverage. Some of the time series currently available extend from 1992, while the more recent ones were initiated in 2007. The present work updates the available time series up to 2015 (included) and shows the capability of these time series for two main purposes: the calculation of mean values for the properties of main water masses around the Spanish Mediterranean, and the study of the interannual and decadal variability of such properties. The data set provided by the RADMED project has been merged with historical data from the MEDAR/MEDATLAS data base for the calculation of temperature and salinity trends from 1900 to 2015. The analysis of these time series shows that the intermediate and deep layers of the Western Mediterranean have increased their temperature and salinity with an acceleration of the warming and salting trends from 1943. Trends for the heat absorbed by the water column for the 1943–2015 period, range between 0.2 and 0.6 W/m2 depending on the used methodology. The temperature and salinity trends for the same period and for the intermediate layer are 0.002 °C/yr and 0.001 yr−1 respectively. Deep layers warmed and increased their salinity at a rate of 0.004 °C/yr and 0.001 yr−1The RADMED monitoring programme is funded by the Instituto Español de Oceanografìa, and has been partially funded by the DESMMON project (PN I+D+I CTM2008-05695-C02-01), the PERSEUS project (FP7-287600), the IRIS-SES project (DG ENV GA-07.0335/2013/659540/SUB/C2.), the ActionMed project (DG-ENVGA-11.0661/2015/12631/SUB/ENVC.2) ATHAPOC project (PN I+D+I CTM2014-54374-R). Some of the infrastructures involved have been funded by the European Fund for Regional Development under project “Mejora del Equipamiento Científico-Técnico Para Estudios de Oceanografía Biogeofísica en Baleares” (IEOC13-4E-1844)Peer Reviewe

The first experimental campaign of the TJ-II stellarator has been conducted using electron cyclotron resonance heating (, ) with a pulse length of . The flexibility of the device has been used to study five different configurations varying plasma volume and rotational transform. In this paper, the main results of this campaign are presented and, in particular, the influence of plasma-wall interaction phenomena on TJ-II confinement is briefly discussed.