Publication Date:
2021-05-25
Description:
Cyclones with tropical characteristics called medicanes (“Mediterranean Hur-ricanes”) eventually develop in the Mediterranean Sea. They have large harm-ful potential and a correct simulation of their evolution in climate projections is important for an adequate adaptation to climate change. Different studies suggest that ocean–atmosphere coupled models provide a better representation of medicanes, especially in terms of intensity and frequency. In this work, we use the regionally-coupled model ROM to study how air-sea interactions affect the evolution of medicanes in future climate projections. We find that under the RCP8.5 scenario our climate simulations show an overall frequency decrease which is more pronounced in the coupled than in the uncoupled con-figuration, whereas the intensity displays a different behaviour depending on the coupling. In the coupled run, the relative frequency of higher-intensity medicanes increases, but this is not found in the uncoupled simulation. Also, this study indicates that the coupled model simulates better the summer mini-mum in the occurrence of medicanes, avoiding the reproduction of unrealisti-cally intense events that can be found in summer in the uncoupled model.
Repository Name:
EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
Type:
Article
,
isiRev
Format:
application/pdf
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