Abstract

We investigate wave climatology over the Mediterranean Basin using reanalysis/observations (ECMWF's ERA5 and MyOCEAN) and coupled Regional Earth System Model (RegESM). The RegESM model is run in coupled (RegCM4 coupled with ROMS and WAM) and uncoupled mode (atmosphere-land only) for 1979-2017 per... Show moreWe investigate wave climatology over the Mediterranean Basin using reanalysis/observations (ECMWF's ERA5 and MyOCEAN) and coupled Regional Earth System Model (RegESM). The RegESM model is run in coupled (RegCM4 coupled with ROMS and WAM) and uncoupled mode (atmosphere-land only) for 1979-2017 period driven by Era-Interim Reanalysis over the Med-CORDEX domain prescribed under the CORDEX framework. Additionally, the standalone simulation of the wave model (WAM) has been forced by the RegCM wind field (12 km horizontal resolution) for the Mediterranean Sea. We compared simulated mean SWH (Significant Wave Height) results with both the MyOCEAN gage data (SKYRO, 61277, KALAM, LESVO and MYKON) in temporal scale and ERA5 in spatial scale. Comparisons show that temporal variability of the mean SWH is highly consistent with the observations and spatial distribution of the mean SWH is very well captured. Moreover, we compare three model configurations to investigate the role of air-sea interaction in the simulation of key processes that govern wave climate variability over the study area. Our results reveals that the recently developed modeling system RegESM incorporates atmosphere, ocean and wave components and thereby is better capable to improve the understanding of coupled climate system processes. In addition to that, results highlight the importance of atmosphere-ocean-wave coupling in accurate representation of physical processes that influence wave climatology at seasonal timescale over the Mediterranean region. Show less