Extreme Adriatic Sea Wave Events Under Climate Change

In this numerical study, the ultra-high resolution (up to 1.5-km for the atmosphere and 10-m for the ocean) Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) modelling suite wave component (www.izor.hr/adrisc) is used to better understand the behavior of well-documented extreme historical wave events in the Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean Sea) under projected climate changes. First, the wave models are evaluated against 36 historical events selected between 1979 and 2019 and driven by either bora or sirocco winds which can produce fetch large enough to drive extreme wave conditions. In order to obtain the model skill over the entire Adriatic Sea, the wave measurements – including significant wave height, peak and/or mean wave period and wave direction, are extracted from 11 stations located along the Italian and Croatian coastlines. Then the Pseudo Global Warming (PGW) methodology – which imposes an additional climatological change to the forcing used for the historical simulations, is implemented to project the behavior of these 36 storms under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 conditions. Finally, the behavior of the 36 storms for the different scenarios (historical, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) is analyzed and statistically compared to present climate for both bora and sirocco extreme events.