SDG 14 | submarine life
Global warming will reduce the frequency of these types of episodes, but will make them more intense and dangerous.
In recent years, the concept Isolated Depression at High Levels has become more frequent in the meteorological phenomena that occur in the Iberian Peninsula. However, it is better known by its acronym, DANA. This is a very frequent event on the Spanish Levantine coast, as it appears when a very cold polar air front, a jet stream, advances slowly over Western Europe, at a high altitude (usually 5-9 km) and which, when colliding with the warmer and more humid air from the Mediterranean Sea, generates strong and damaging storms. On Mediterranean Day, experts warn of the warming of the waters and the damage to marine fauna and also to the inhabitants of the coast.
This summer, the Mare Nostrum that the Romans baptized has experienced one of the hottest summers and the temperature of the sea surface has reached historical records. The buoys spread along the Levantine coast registered 30 degrees on several days during the months of June, July and August. The concern of the experts is increasing: “A tropicalization of the Mediterranean is taking place.”
This sustained increase in temperatures, during the last months, more than 60 days have been recorded with abnormally high values, affecting the flora, fauna and also the climate on land. «The presence of warmer surface waters enriches the air located on the sea surface with an extra amount of water vapor, which means that when a favorable meteorological situation occurs in the area for rain, the intensity of the precipitation is greater and the rain reaches a more extreme character”, highlights José Miguel Viñas, Meteored expert.
Las Danas are already a frequent phenomenon in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, although “they cannot be attributed to the presence of a warmer Mediterranean,” Viñas details. The explanation is that the conductor of the orchestra is atmospheric circulation, in particular a wavy jet, which favors the drop of cold air and the formation of danas », she adds.
«The Mediterranean basin is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth: a disturbance in atmospheric temperature could have serious consequences»
However, global warming, the Mediterranean is ground zero for climate change in Europe, it is causing changes in the climate of the region. “The Mediterranean basin is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth: a disturbance in atmospheric temperature could have serious socio-economic consequences in the coming decades,” says Juan José González-Alemán, doctor in physics and specialist in tropical cyclones.
In an article published in Geophysical Research Letters, he explores the effects of global warming in the Mediterranean and the possible appearance of tropical cyclones called: medicanes. “It is an acronym that results from the fusion of the words Mediterranean and hurricane, so we could identify it as a ‘Mediterranean hurricane’, although we cannot identify it with hurricanes that form in the subtropics,” explains Viñas.
The conditions that sometimes occur in the Mediterranean -among which the presence of high surface water temperatures is included- “encourage the cyclones that can form in the basin to acquire some characteristics similar to those of tropical cyclones, such as the presence of an eye and very intense winds around it. The dimensions of the medicanes, yes, are smaller than those of hurricanes, “reveals the Meteored expert.
Medic training in Greece in 2018. /
In September 2020, Ianos with winds of more than 190 km/h devastated some villages in central Greece. The speed it reached elevated it to the category of tropical cyclone, but it was not the first since the Mediterranean had already registered this type of storm years before. «The intensification of meteorological phenomena is being observed all over the world, but the Mediterranean region, due to its uniqueness, is one of the terrestrial regions where phenomena such as rain, storms and wind storms associated with cyclones become more adverse and extreme. and storm systems formed in said basin”, warns Viñas.
In fact, medicans have been observed mainly in two areas of the Mediterranean: one between the Balearic Islands and Sardinia and the other in the south-west of the Peloponnese. Unlike hurricanes, they barely last a day, dissolving between 12 and 18 hours and their winds rarely exceed 100 km/h. However, rising temperatures will make them more dangerous, but also less frequent.
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