Citation

Šepić J, Vilibić I, Rabinovich AB, Monserrat S. Sci. Rep. 2015; 5: 11682.

Affiliation

Department of Physics, University of the Balearic Islands, Ctra.Valldemossa, km. 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/srep11682

PMID

26119833

Abstract

A series of tsunami-like waves of non-seismic origin struck several southern European countries during the period of 23 to 27 June 2014. The event caused considerable damage from Spain to Ukraine. Here, we show that these waves were long-period ocean oscillations known as meteorological tsunamis which are generated by intense small-scale air pressure disturbances. An unique atmospheric synoptic pattern was tracked propagating eastward over the Mediterranean and the Black seas in synchrony with onset times of observed tsunami waves. This pattern favoured generation and propagation of atmospheric gravity waves that induced pronounced tsunami-like waves through the Proudman resonance mechanism. This is the first documented case of a chain of destructive meteorological tsunamis occurring over a distance of thousands of kilometres. Our findings further demonstrate that these events represent potentially dangerous regional phenomena and should be included in tsunami warning systems.

Language: en