An Assessment of the Expected Dynamics of the Extreme Storms in the Mediterranean Sea

Rusu, E., 2024. An assessment of the expected dynamics of the extreme storms in the Mediterranean Sea. In: Phillips, M.R.; Al-Naemi, S., and Duarte, C.M. (eds.), Coastlines under Global Change: Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2024 (Doha, Qatar). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 113, pp. 1006-1010. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. The climate changes are obvious and they often have very strong and unexpected effects. Such features include a significant enhancement of the frequency and intensity of extreme storms, particularly in the marine environment where the wind blows without obstacles over large geographical spaces. From this perspective, the objective of the present work is to assess the expected dynamics of the extreme storms in the Mediterranean Sea. This assessment is based on an analysis of the data provided by two regional climate wind models. These are RCA4, from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, and ALADIN, run by Météo-France. Two different periods, each of 30 years, are considered. These are the time intervals 1976-2005 for the recent past, and 2041-2070, which is denoted as the near future. Furthermore, three different climate scenarios have been considered for the analysis. They correspond to RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, for RCA4, and RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 for ALADIN. For the recent past period, ERA5 data were also processed and compared with the results provided by the climatic wind models. Considering these datasets, for each time interval and climate scenario, the most significant storm events from the point of view of the maximum wind speeds were first identified. As a next step, the wave conditions corresponding to each storm are also assessed by performing simulations with the SWAN model. In this way, the expected dynamics of the extreme storms is assessed by comparing the corresponding wind and wave conditions from the past with those expected in the future. The results show that a slight increase is expected in the near future in the Mediterranean Sea, both as regards the maximum wind speeds and significant wave heights.