Facing the Mediterranean view hurricanesThis has so far been a truly exceptional occurrence in this part of the planet, but it may become relatively common. The case of storm ‘Daniel’ is an example of what scientists call a ‘medicane’, that is, a Mediterranean hurricane. They can also hit Spain.
Flash floods that killed thousands of people in Libya this week were the result of a rare but devastating weather phenomenon that scientists believe will intensify as the Mediterranean warms due to climate change. term one Combination of the words Mediterranean and hurricane (English) hurricane).
Mediterranean ‘medicines’ or hurricanes, which tend to form in parts of this sea near the northern coast of Africa, are similar to traditional hurricanes and typhoons, although they can develop in colder waters.
They also have the same physical appearance in satellite images; They appear as a mass of swirling storm clouds surrounding a centrally located eye.
The event, recorded in Libya and known as Storm Daniel, caused very strong winds and rainfall and dumped approximately 170 millimeters of rain on Libya.
Scientists warn about this Such events intensify with global warming, Because warm waters facilitate the formation of these Mediterranean hurricanes.
“We are confident that climate change is increasing the rainfall associated with these types of storms,” Liz Stephens, a professor at the University of Reading (UK), told AFP.
Smaller but also devastating
Mediterranean hurricanes tend to be smaller and weaker than their tropical counterparts because they have less room to develop than in the Atlantic Ocean, for example.
Its maximum strength is generally the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale and reaches speeds of 119 to 153 kilometers per hour.
‘Healthers’ usually begin to form in autumn when the sea is warm. generally in the Western Mediterranean Professor Suzanne Gray, from the department of meteorology at the University of Reading, explained that it was in the region between the Ionian Sea and the northern coast of Africa.
The layer of colder air from higher altitudes forms convections of warmer air rising from the sea and coalescing around a low pressure center.
Rare but deadly and also in Spain
According to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mediterranean hurricanes form on average once or twice a year. While hurricanes move from east to west, hurricanes tend to move from west to east.
There were three ‘sancers’ against Greece between 2016 and 2018. In 2019, Spanish meteorological services detected one between the Balearic Islands and the coast of Algeria.
The Mediterranean hurricane named Ianos, whose wind speed reached 120 kilometers per hour, hit Greece in September 2020, causing three deaths, floods, landslides and power outages in the city of Karditsa. The Italian island of Sicily was also hit by one of these events in 2021.
Turbocharged Rain
Experts generally say that Rising sea surface temperatures due to human-caused climate change will make extreme storms even more severe. In any case, they say, it is difficult to establish patterns or decipher their behavior.
According to scientists, Oceans absorbed 90 percent of excess heat produced by human activity Since the beginning of the industrial age.
Spanish researchers have proven that the Mediterranean reached record temperatures in July, when Europe suffered from consecutive heat waves. It was also the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.
The surface waters of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Atlantic are two to three degrees Celsius warmer than normal, and it is precisely this fact that overloaded Hurricane Daniel.
“The truth is that Daniel’s ability to become a ‘physician’ is probably a result of rising temperatures climatologist Karsten Haustein of the University of Leipzig in Germany added to AFP: “on the sea surface and therefore on human-caused climate change.”
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