the MEDICANES project

EARTH OBSERVATIONS AS A CORNERSTONE TO THE UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTION OF TROPICAL-LIKE CYCLONE RISK IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

In the last decades, several Mediterranean cyclones have attained similar cloud structures, although with weaker intensities, to tropical cyclones. These systems compose a peculiar subcategory of Mediterranean cyclones, known in the scientific literature as medicanes (a portmanteau of the words Mediterranean hurricanes), or Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones. Despite their limited number to about 0-3 events per year, medicanes are directly related with high impact weather and thus have been constantly attracting the interest of the scientific community, but also of the general public.

They cause numerous fatalities and severe damages in several Mediterranean countries due to strong wind gusts, high sea waves and heavy rainfall. There is no doubt that medicanes constitute prominent environmental risks that affect more than 500 million people in one of the most densely populated regions of the world. In this project we will rely on Earth Observations (EO) to provide a comprehensive approach on the problem of increasing our understandying of medicanes, better forecasting their occurrence and quantifying the limitations of atmospheric modelling in reproducing relevant high-impact weather.

Objectives

Rely on advanced satellite EO systems and modelling capabilities to develop new concepts, methods and tools to:

  • Fill fundamental gaps in the physical definition of medicanes, in particular characterize the different physical mechanisms that may induce tropical-like features
  • Improve the predictability of medicanes
  • Understand and quantify limitations of atmospheric and oceanic modelling in reproducing high-impact weather associated to medicanes (i.e,, windstorms, storm surges, floods)
  • Improve the quantification of the relevant environmental risks and socio-economic impacts associated to medicanes  

    • innovative aspects

    Provide definition of medicanes based on EOs: Synergy between newly available EOs and models will allow near real-time (NRT) identification of medicane formation/occurrence, monitoring and tracking.

    Provide physical context atmospheric and oceanic dynamics to new EOs, which we have the ambition to exploit as trademarks for weather applications in order to support the forecasting of environmental risks, climate prediction and civil protection.

    Provide a deeper understanding of socio-economic impacts, and the underlying atmospheric-oceanic processes that produce them through the use of novel observations with exceptionally high spatial resolution and temporal sampling that are expected to complement high-resolution simulations. 

    Develop new data assimilation techniques of novel EOs and products and near-real time monitoring tools of cyclone tracks and intensity based on AI. These are expected to extend existing capabilities in weather forecasting beyond the state of the art.

    Advance our capacity to assess vulnerability from regional to local scales, estimate the associated risks, and predict their occurrence and impacts on society and ecosystems.