TY  - JOUR
A1  - Obermann-Hellhund, Anika
T1  - State of the simulation of mesoscale winds in the Mediterranean and opportunities for improvements
T2  - Atmosphere
N2  - The Mediterranean region is a densely populated and economically relevant area with complex orography including mountain ranges, islands, and straits. In combination with pressure gradients, this creates many mesoscale wind systems that cause, e.g., wind gusts and wildfire risk in the Mediterranean. This article reviews the recent state of the science of several mesoscale winds in the Mediterranean and associated processes. Previous work, including case studies on several time ranges and resolutions, as well as studies on these winds under future climate conditions, is discussed. Simulations with grid spacings of 25 to 50 km can reproduce winds driven by large-scale pressure patterns such as Mistral, Tramontane, and Etesians. However, these simulations struggle with the correct representation of winds channeled in straits and mountain gaps and around islands. Grid spacings of 1–3 km are certainly necessary to resolve these small-scale features. The smaller grid spacings are widely used in case studies, but not yet in simulations over large areas and long periods, which also could help to understand the interaction between small-scale phenomena in separate locations. Furthermore, by far not all Mediterranean straits, islands, and mountain gaps were studied in-depth and many interesting Mediterranean small-scale winds still need to be studied.
KW  - Mediterranean area
KW  - mesoscale winds
KW  - regional climate models
KW  - straits
KW  - Mistral
KW  - Tramontane
KW  - Bora
KW  - Etesians
KW  - land breeze
KW  - sea breeze
Y1  - 2022
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/73196
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-731968
SN  - 2073-4433
N1  - This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 776661 (SOCLIMPACT) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant MiKliP II (FKZ 01LP1518C).
VL  - 13
IS  - 7, art. 1007
SP  - 1
EP  - 15
PB  - MDPI AG
CY  - Basel, Switzerland
ER  -