DOWNSCALING CLIMATE PROJECTIONS TOWARDS COASTAL HYDRODYNAMICS MODELS

Abstract

State-of-art modelling has shown a largely altered oceanographic environment as a consequence of climate change. The climate models implemented normally present low temporal and spatial resolutions as they aim at a general understanding on how large scale processes vary in a changing climate. Through downscaling projections towards coastal applications it is possible to reach higher resolutions and much more detailed information. If such an approach is performed using unstructured models instead of finite difference ones, it allows for an even better representation of complex morphologies. The latter enables studying more in depth the behavior of coastal environments, such as deltas, that heavily involve the oceanographic and hydrologic components. One of such areas is the Po Delta located in the Northern Adriatic Sea. With its complex system of lagoons and river branches (Maicu et al., 2018), downscaling is fundamental for representing the local processes driven by the interaction between the basin wide circulation and the freshwater inputs. In the context of the European Strategic Italy-Croatia AdriaClim Project (ID 10252001), hydrodynamic downscaling from regional scenario projections to high-resolution coastal applications is undergoing. The final local, high-resolution implementation is a finite element hydrodynamic model that uses the atmospheric forcing, and hydrologic and oceanographic boundaries from the projections.