The Mediterranean and Black Sea meteotsunamis: an overview

Abstract

This paper presents the first comprehensive review of the Mediterranean and Black Sea meteorological tsunamis or meteotsunamis (atmospherically induced destructive long ocean waves in the tsunami frequency band) based on the available literature, tools and services. The Mediterranean and Black Seas are micro-tidal basins; therefore, rapid sea level changes in the tsunami frequency band may strongly affect coastal regions and infrastructures and endanger human lives. The review also includes a succinct bibliography of Mediterranean and Black Sea meteotsunami papers and evaluates their structure in respect to geographical extent, the type of tools used (observations versus modelling) and source processes in the atmosphere versus ocean manifestations. This review continues with a presentation of major meteotsunami events and a discussion about their sources, the resonant transfer of energy towards the sea, their propagation towards shore and their interactions with bathymetry. Meteotsunami monitoring and forecasting systems are overviewed with respect to available observations, deterministic and stochastic modelling tools and operational early warning networks. This review includes an important assessment of operational and research gaps and ideas for improving research tools and understanding of various aspects of meteotsunamis. The authors believe and hope that this review will help researchers and services to increase or improve their capacities and skills for conducting better research on meteotsunamis, not just in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, but in all ocean basins around the world affected by this destructive and dangerous phenomenon.

Special issue on the global perspective on meteotsunami science: editorial

“…Most of the meteotsunami events were relatively local (S = 1-2); the spatial coverage S = 3 was mainly associated with hurricanes (Okal 2021; Titov and Moore 2021) and typhoons (Heidarzadeh and Rabinovich 2021;Lin and Wu 2021) and also with intensive squall lines propagating along the coast (Sibley et al 2021;Araujo et al 2021). The chain of events on 23-27 June 2014 (S = 4) observed in many bays and harbours of the Mediterranean and Black seas (Rabinovich 2020;Vilibić et al 2021;Zemunik et al 2021;Okal 2021) was probably unique.…”

“…A comprehensive overview of the Mediterranean and Black Sea meteotsunamis is presented by Vilibić et al (2021) It contains a thorough description of the strongest events in modern times, succinct bibliometric analysis of meteotsunami papers and discussion of meteotsunami sources, the offshore resonant energy radiation, wave propagation onshore and interactions with bathymetry and coastal topography. The review also includes description of meteotsunami monitoring and forecasting systems and assessment of operational and research gaps in the meteotsunami study.…”

“…They have been documented to impact certain coastlines, mostly specific harbours or bays, for centuries. In some bays, the meteotsunami waves have been recorded with heights of several metres and associated currents of several knots, which may pose a particular threat to low-tidal regions, like the Mediterranean and Black seas (Vilibić et al 2021) and the Great Lakes (Bechle et al 2016), where the coastal infrastructure is not adapted to such strong sea-level oscillations. A number of catastrophic meteotsunamis have been recorded in modern times: (1) The Great Lakes, USA, in 1954, killing 7 people in Chicago (Ewing et al 1954), (2) Vela Luka, Croatia, in 1978, resulting in US$7 million in damage at that time (Vučetić et al 2009), (3) Nagasaki Bay, Japan, in 1979, killing 3 people and flooding coastal cities (Hibiya and Kajiura 1982), (4) Ciutadella in the Balearic Islands, Spain, in 1984 and2006, sinking tens of yachts and boats and causing of tens of millions of euros in damage (Jansà and Ramis 2021), (5) Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, in 1992, causing at least 75 injuries and damaging several dozen vehicles on the beach (Churchill et al 1995), (6) the catastrophic 2007 event in Mostaganem (Algeria) responsible for the death of 12 people (Okal 2021), (7) the catastrophic meteotsunamis that affected the north Persian Gulf coastline, Iran, causing the death of 5 people and injuring 22 (Salaree et al 2018;Heidarzadeh et al 2020;Kazeminezhad et al 2021), and several others.…”

Meteotsunamis at global scale: problems of event identification, parameterization and cataloguing

“…Among the numerous definitions of meteotsunamis given in recent research and review papers, the best, probably, is the shortest: "Meteotsunamis are atmospherically-induced destructive long ocean waves in the tsunami frequency band" (Vilibić et al 2020). Despite its brevity, this definition correctly points out the three main features of meteotsunamis: a frequency band that coincides with that of ordinary (tectonic) tsunamis, their destructive potential, and their relation to atmospheric forcing.…”

“…The atmospheric phenomena that are usually suggested as potential generators of meteotsunamis are moving pressure disturbances such as squall lines, thunderstorms, frontal passages, atmospheric gravity waves, mesoscale convective storms, rain bands in tropical cyclones, passages of typhoons and hurricanes, derechos, CISK-waves (Convective Instability of Second Kind), tide-generated internal waves, atmospheric shock waves from volcanic explosions and other atmospheric instabilities (Vilibić et al 2020).…”