The rissaga of 15 June 2006 in Ciutadella (Menorca), a meteorological tsunami

Abstract

Abstract. An extraordinary "rissaga" event (the local name for high-amplitude sea level oscillations) with 4-5 m of amplitude occurred on 15 June 2006 at Ciutadella (Menorca, Spain). In this paper we describe the rissaga event and propose that the meteorological mechanism responsible for it was an unusual pressure jump, associated with a convective squall line.

The development and implementation of a real-time meteotsunami warning network for the Adriatic Sea

“…Meteotsunamis are known to cause extensive damage and even loss of human life. The Balearic Island meteotsunami of 15 June 2006 with 5 m high waves caused economic loss of several tens of Correspondence to: J.Šepić (sepic@izor.hr) millions of euros (Jansa et al, 2007;Vilibić et al, 2008). The Nagasaki Bay meteotsunami of 31 March 1979, again with 5 m high waves, resulted in the drowning of three elderly women (Hibiya and Kajiura, 1982).…”

Meteorological tsunamis on the US East Coast and in other regions of the World Ocean

“…In the following years, comprehensive studies of meteorological tsunamis were done in various countries of the world oceans, in particular in Spain Liu et al 2003;Jansà et al 2007), Mexico (González et al 2001), New Zealand (Goring 2005;Vennell, 2007), Netherlands (de Jong et al 2003;de Jong and Battjes 2004) and especially in Croatia (Vilibić et al 2004;Vilibić 2005;Belušić et al 2007). …”

Towards an understanding and operational early warning of the Adriatic meteotsunamis: Project MESSI

“…Meteotsunamis has been documented to occur worldwide, while being particularly destructive in micro-tidal regions, where the coasts and the infrastructures are not adapted to large and rapid sea level oscillations. Still, no real-time warning system has been established in the world, aside the qualitative warning for the area of the Balearic Islands operated by AEMET Meteo Service, by examining synoptic patterns and searching manually for conditions having a potential to generate meteotsunamigenic atmospheric disturbances (JANSÀ et al, 2007). The eastern Adriatic shoreline is found particularly vulnerable for meteotsunamis, where a number of events occurred in the last decades over the whole coastline .…”

“…Travelling air pressure disturbances are the most common generator of meteotsunamis, where the energy is transferred from the atmosphere to the ocean through a number of resonances, of which most common are Proudman resonance (PROUDMAN, 1929) and harbour resonance (RABINOVICH, 2009). At the top of a harbour these sea level oscillations can range for several metres and can flood coastal areas (VUČETIĆ et al, 2009), damage coastal infrastructure (JANSÀ et al, 2007;PATTIARATCHI & WIJERATNE, 2015), and injure and kill the people (HIBIYA & KAJIURA, 1982;BECHLE et al, 2016). Meteotsunamis has been documented to occur worldwide, while being particularly destructive in micro-tidal regions, where the coasts and the infrastructures are not adapted to large and rapid sea level oscillations.…”

“…Meteotsunamis or meteorological tsunamis are atmospherically-generated long ocean waves in a tsunami frequency band (MONSERRAT et al, 2006). Travelling air pressure disturbances are the most common generator of meteotsunamis, where the energy is transferred from the atmosphere to the ocean through a number of resonances, of which most common are Proudman resonance (PROUDMAN, 1929) and harbour resonance (RABINOVICH, 2009).…”