DATE2019-01-08 12:44:23
IDABSTRACT2014/313
CONTACTpiero.lionello@unisalento.it
PRESENTATIONPOSTER
INVITED0
IDSESSION3
TITLEA COMPREHENSIVE ESTIMATE THE MAXIMUM WATER LEVEL REACHED DURING STORMS AT THE COAST OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
AUTHORSPiero Lionello (1,2)|Dario Conte (2)|Luigi Marzo (1)|Luca Scarascia (2)
AFFILIATIONS
  1. 1DiSTeBA, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy
  2. 2CMCC Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Lecce, Italy
ABSTRACTThe maximum level that water reaches during a storm along the coast depends on changes of mean sea level and storminess. Increase of mean sea level can be caused by mass addition, steric effects or land subsidence. Changes of storminess will change the height of ocean waves and storm surge levels. This study attempts to estimate simultaneously some of these factors at the coast: thermosteric expansion, halosteric contraction, height of the wave crests, maximum surge level. Our analysis is based on a 7-member model ensemble of regional climate model simulations (developed and used in the CIRCE fp6 project ) covering the period 1951-2050 under the A1B emission scenario. The results of the models that included a high resolution Mediterranean Sea circulation component have been used for diagnosing the steric sea level change. Sea level pressure and wind fields are used for forcing a hydro-dynamical shallow water model (HYPSE), wind fields are used for forcing a wave model (WAM), obtaining estimates of storm surges and ocean waves, respectively. The climate change signal is computed as the difference between maximum water level statistics in the 1971-2000 and 2021-2050 period. Results show that the decrease of storm surge level and wave height will compensate for the positive steric effects in the next decades. Obviously the actual future change of intensity of hazards posed at the coastline will depend on mass addition caused by massive ice melting at global scale.
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