Medicanes in an ocean–atmosphere coupled regional climate model

  • So-called medicanes (Mediterranean hurricanes) are meso-scale, marine, and warm-core Mediterranean cyclones that exhibit some similarities to tropical cyclones. The strong cyclonic winds associated with medicanes threaten the highly populated coastal areas around the Mediterranean basin. To reduce the risk of casualties and overall negative impacts, it is important to improve the understanding of medicanes with the use of numerical models. In this study, we employ an atmospheric limited-area model (COSMO-CLM) coupled with a one-dimensional ocean model (1-D NEMO-MED12) to simulate medicanes. The aim of this study is to assess the robustness of the coupled model in simulating these extreme events. For this purpose, 11 historical medicane events are simulated using the atmosphere-only model, COSMO-CLM, and coupled model, with different setups (horizontal atmospheric grid-spacings of 0.44°, 0.22°, and 0.08°; with/without spectral nudging, and an ocean grid-spacing of 1/12°). The results show that at high-resolution, the coupled model is able to not only simulate most of medicane events but also improve the track length, core temperature, and wind speed of simulated medicanes compared to the atmosphere-only simulations. The results suggest that the coupled model is more proficient for systemic and detailed studies of historical medicane events, and that this model can be an effective tool for future projections.

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Author:Naveed Akhtar, Jennifer Brauch, Andreas Dobler, Karine Béranger, Bodo AhrensORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-344058
DOI:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhessd-2-2117-2014
ISSN:2195-9269
Parent Title (English):Natural hazards and earth system sciences discussions
Publisher:European Geophysical Society
Place of publication:Katlenburg-Lindau
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2014/07/07
Date of first Publication:2014/03/19
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2014/07/07
Volume:2
Page Number:33
First Page:2117
Last Page:2149
Note:
© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
HeBIS-PPN:451282566
Institutes:Geowissenschaften / Geographie / Geowissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0