Demonstration and Impact Assessment

Evaluating the Effectiveness of New Tools and Methods for Medicanes and High-Impact Weather Forecasting

Focusing on the iteration and coordination of activities related to demonstration and impact assessment, MEDICANES project involves the application of newly developed tools to showcase their usefulness in user communities, particularly experts in numerical weather prediction, Mediterranean cyclone climatology, and medicane research.

The new tools aim to identify, delimit boundaries, and quantify the relevance of warm core systems to medicanes, addressing a fundamental gap in atmospheric dynamics. These methods will utilize Earth Observations (EOs) to discern warm air anomalies and monitor medicanes through wind symmetries around a fixed, cloudless "eye." Detecting such structures is crucial as it highlights the similarities between medicanes and tropical cyclones.

Experimental data assimilation techniques will be applied to explore how these detected substructures influence the numerical weather prediction of medicanes. This work is expected to significantly enhance the accuracy and reliability of forecasting high-impact weather events, leading to better predictions of cyclone tracks and intensities. Additionally, a physical definition of medicanes has been established based on their observed characteristics from satellite data, filling a critical gap in the study of Mediterranean cyclones.

Another aspect of this work involves the understanding of medicanes from an impact perspective, utilizing newly produced products and dedicated atmospheric and oceanic models. This will include examining the complementarity of new EOs with high-resolution models to interpret observed features and identify limitations in predicting or reproducing high-impact weather events in the Mediterranean region. The impacts studied will include storm surges, high sea waves, windstorms, heavy precipitation, and their combinations.

On the quantification of socio-economic impacts on local and regional scales.

MEDICANES investigation centers on understanding the socio-economic impacts of Medicanes on local and regional scales. This comprehensive study will:

  • Examine Case Studies: Analyze specific events and their socio-economic consequences, focusing on the vulnerability of local populations to extreme weather phenomena.
  • Assess Forecast Capabilities: Identify the reasons behind Medicane-related disasters by evaluating the current forecast capabilities and their effectiveness in predicting critical parameters such as track, intensity, and precipitation.
  • Evaluate New Tools: Provide insights into the effectiveness of the new tools developed which focuses on compound events involving ocean, land, and atmospheric impacts.

    • This research aims to enhance our understanding of Medicanes and improve the resilience of communities against these powerful storms.