Unveiling the Relationship Between Mediterranean Tropical-Like Cyclones and Rising Sea Surface Temperature

Abstract

Leveraging the Copernicus high-resolution multi-year Mediterranean Sea Surface Temperature (SST) dataset, 15 selected tropical-like cyclones (TLCs) are analyzed with the objective of elucidating the anomalies of SST at the time of cyclogenesis and the connection between the change in SST during the cyclone lifetime and its characteristics. The long-term SST increase associated with climate change is identified by comparing detrended and original anomalies. Detrending removes the effect of the intensification of SST anomaly over time, revealing that no significant anomalies generally emerge in the early stages of the TLC lifetimes. Conversely, winter events exhibit early-stage positive SST anomalies. Also, high SST values were observed during the intensification of the most intense cyclones. A cold SST anomaly is left after the passage of the cyclones, due to the intense sea surface fluxes extracting heat from the sea.