Changement climatique et évolution des tempêtes dans le Golfe du Lion : approche par intégration d’échelles spatio-temporelles

• Published in: Cybergeo
• Main Author: Albin Ullmann
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: German; English; French; Italian; Portuguese
• Published: Unité Mixte de Recherche 8504 Géographie-cités 2009
• Subjects: storms; climate change; spatio-temporal scale; Golfe du Lion; Geography (General); G1-922; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.22013; https://doaj.org/article/24b13c0ba944448eba0d2e35a420a0fd

Coastal flooding in the Gulf of Lion is associated with storm-surges linked with south-easterly winds that push up the water toward the coasts. At a synoptic scale, these meteorological conditions are associated with a deep barometric depression near the Bay of Biscay. This is favoured by the negative phase of the North-Atlantic Oscillation that leads to a southward shift of the main storm track over the northern Atlantic. In the second half of the 20th century, the frequency of south easterlies shows a significant increase in the whole Gulf of Lion, paradoxically with the positive deviation of the North-Atlantic Oscillation. Changes in the mean atmospheric conditions at this broad spatial-scale have increased the probability of barometric depression near the Bay of Biscay and of south easterlies in the Gulf of Lion during the negative phase of the North-Atlantic Oscillation.