Séminaire labex CAPPA

Characterizing synoptic atmospheric conditions for meteotsunami formation in Adriatic sea.

Authors: Marin Vojković, Jadranka Šepić, Krešimir Ruić, Faculty of Science, University of Split

Abstract:

Extreme sea levels are a constant focus of scientific research because of their potentially destructive impact on the coastal infrastructure. Among these, meteotsunamis are of special interest to researchers due to the complex air-sea interactions included in their formation. Sea level data from 18 tide gauges (measurement lengths up to 17.5 years) located along the Adriatic Sea provide us possibility to extract data about the recent events, and the ERA5 reanalysis dataset (in particular mean sea level pressure and winds, along with temperature, relative humidity, and geopotential at various heights), provides us with synoptic situations associated with each event. This allows us to examine the broader atmospheric conditions involved in meteotsunami formation and aids in developing an early warning system, based on meteotsunami index (MI). The MI was developed previously from observations on the Balearic Islands, and it is the attempt of the work within the SHExtreme project to generalize this tool beyond this region. For this purpose, we examine the extracted synoptic conditions related to meteotsunamis and attempt to categorize them using K-means and SOM clustering neural networks, to find commonalities in the conditions to help us develop future prognostics.