Toward the predictability of meteotsunamis in the Balearic Sea using regional nested atmosphere and ocean models

Abstract

Meteotsunamis are oceanic waves that possess tsunami‐like characteristics but are meteorological in origin. In the western Mediterranean, travelling atmospheric pressure oscillations generate these long oceanic surface waves that can become amplified and produce strong seiche oscillations inside harbors. We analyze a June 2006 meteotsunami event in Ciutadella harbor (Menorca Island, Spain), studying numerically the phenomenon during its full life cycle, from the early atmospheric stages to the atmosphere‐ocean resonant phase and the final highly amplified harbor oscillation. The Weather Research Forecast (WRF) atmospheric model adequately reproduces the development of a convective nucleus and also reproduces the induced atmospheric pressure oscillations moving at a speed of 27 m/s. The oceanic response is studied using the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS), forced by the WRF pressure field. It shows an inverse barometer wave front in the open ocean progressively amplified through resonant interactions in the different shelf and coastal regions. The predictive capability of this new WRF/ROMS modeling approach is then discussed.