New advances on the prediction of meteotsunamis (“rissagues”) in Ciutadella

A team of researchers from SOCIB, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), University of Balearic Islands (UIB), National Institute of Biology(Slovenia) and AEMET published a new study analyzing the potential of ensemble forecasting for the prediction of meteotsunamis in Ciutadella. The new paper entitled “On the potential of ensemble forecasting for the prediction of meteotsunamis in the Balearic Islands: sensitivity to atmospheric model parameterizations”, was published recently in the journal Natural Hazards (Springer publisher).

Ensemble of simulations of the most significant past rissaga events were analyzed using the SOCIB Balearic Rissaga Forecasting System (BRIFS), which has been providing operational daily predictions of sea level anomalies in Ciutadella over the recent years. Our results show that the modeling system is able to realistically generate tsunamigenic atmospheric disturbances in more than 90% of the situations, but that the small-scale characteristics of these disturbances are significantly modified with the change of parameterizations, leading to significant differences in the magnitude of the final sea level oscillations in Ciutadella. Importantly, the observed magnitude of the extreme sea-level oscillations lies within the range of a nine-member ensemble in 70% of the cases. Even if still imperfect, this ensemble approach would then allow to generate a realistic range of possibilities in the majority of events, thus improving the realism of meteotsunami predictions compared to single deterministic forecasts.

Reference

  • B. Mourre, A. Santana, A. Buils, L. Gautreau, M. Ličer, A. Jansà, B. Casas, B. Amengual & J. Tintoré. On the potential of ensemble forecasting for the prediction of meteotsunamis in the Balearic Islands: sensitivity to atmospheric model parameterizations. Nat Hazards (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-03908-x