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Abstract:
Medicanes, strong mesoscale cyclones with tropical-like features,
develop occasionally over the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the scarcity of
observations over sea and the coarse resolution of the long-term
reanalysis datasets, it is difficult to study systematically the
multidecadal statistics of sub-synoptic medicanes. Our goal is to assess
the long-term variability and trends of medicanes, obtaining a long-term
climatology through dynamical downscaling of the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis
data. In this paper, we examine the robustness of this method and
investigate the value added for the study of medicanes. To do so, we
performed several climate mode simulations with a high resolution
regional atmospheric model (CCLM) for a number of test cases described
in the literature. We find that the medicanes are formed in the
simulations, with deeper pressures and stronger winds than in the
driving global NCEP reanalysis. The tracks are adequately reproduced. We
conclude that our methodology is suitable for constructing multi-decadal
statistics and scenarios of current and possible future medicane
activities.
