This project is the natural continuation of the project VANIMEDAT (Decadal and interdecadal variability of sea level in the Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic). While VANIMEDAT was focused on the study of sea level variability in recent decades, with special attention to the calculation of trends and to quantify the physical processes responsible for the observed variability, this proposal focuses on future marine scenarios, namely for the XXI Century. The main motivation is that at the regional level, particularly in the case of the Mediterranean Sea, the global models used by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) have not been accurated due to its low spatial resolution.

Although sea level will have special preponderance in the project, other key variables such as temperature, salinity and currents will be also provided, broadening the scope of VANIMEDAT project.

The characterization of the marine future scenarios will be based on two types of numerical simulations:

  * On one hand, the baroclinic (3D) regional model, developed in VANIMEDAT, will be used to obtain temperature, salinity and sea level fields as well as the rest of parameters forecasted or diagnosed by the model. In VANIMEDAT project the model was used in hindcast mode to simulate the last four decades of the twentieth century. Adaptating the model to forecast future scenarios will not be mmediate and will require a number of preliminary works.

  * On the other hand, a barotropic (2D) model will be used to isolate the mechanical forcing (the effect of atmospheric pressure and wind). In this case, the focus is exclusively on sea level, in particular in the determination for the XXI century of long-term extreme values, which depend mainly on the mechanical forcings (and tides in the Atlantic domain). Because consequences on the coast line are not only due to the slow rise in sea level, or only due to changes on long-terme extreme values, but the superposition of both.

The main goal of the project (obtaining marine climate scenarios for the XXI century, with particular attention to sea level) can be splited into five specific objectives/tasks:

1. Adapting of the regional baroclinic model to the simulation of scenarios. This adaptation requires a number of previous studies to ensure that all assumptions made are reasonable not only for the predicted hydrodynamic variables (T, S, v, ...) but also for the diagnosis of sea level.

2. Baroclinic simulations for the XXI Century. Model will be forced with the outputs of regional atmospheric models run for different scenarios of emissions of greenhouse gases. A series of marine scenarios for the variables of interest will be produced.

3. Barotropic simulations for the XXI Century. Model will be forced with atmospheric pressure and wind generated by regional atmospheric models run for different emissions scenarios. It will be used to evaluate the mechanical atmospheric component of sea level, and in particular long-term extreme values for the XXI century.

4. Comprehensive study of the uncertainties, those derived from forcings as well as those derived from the physics and the hypothesis of the used marine models.This assessment was considered as important as the outputs of forecasts.

5. Creating a web portal to provide the generated scenarios to the public. Apart from model outputs, also comprised sets of information will be produced. They will be addressed to both scientific comunity and managers, focusing in particular on the changes since the twentieth century.