Research
The main research lines of the Sea Level and Climate group are:
1. Long-term sea level variability (at climate scales). The main objectives of this line are:
1a) Understand long-term sea level variability, both in the Mediterranean Sea and at global scale. Understanding the variability means both, describing it and investigating the processes underlying it, which are: the atmospheric components (mechanical forcing of sea level due to atmospheric pressure and wind), the steric component (due to changes in the density of the water column) and the mass component (due to changes in the water balance, which in turn depend on the melting of continental ice, on the redistribution of water between basins and on the regional circulation).
1b) Obtain regional marine climate scenarios for the 21st century, mainly for variables such as temperature, salinity, currents, the different components of sea level and waves. The research focuses not only on changes in the mean values, but also on changes in the distribution of extreme values.
1c) Assess the impacts of sea level variability on coasts and marine ecosystems.
2. High frequency sea level oscillations. Meteotsunamis (meteorological tsunamis) are sea level oscillations in the frequency band of tsunamis (2 min – 2 h) forced by atmospheric disturbances. Despite being generally smaller in amplitude than tsunamis, they can occasionally also affect the coasts in a destructive way. The main objective of this line of research is to improve our knowledge about the processes that originate meteotsunamis, in order to improve their prediction.