the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 10 Jan 2025
Catalogue of floods recorded at tide-gauge station Bakar in the northeastern Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean)
Abstract. Flooding in the northern Adriatic Sea occasionally occurs in late fall and winter as a result of storm surges that combine with other sea-level processes at different spatial and temporal scales. This paper presents (empirical) analysis of the 27 most intense floods recorded at the Croatian tide-gauge station Bakar on the northeastern coast of the Adriatic Sea in the period 1929–2022. Floods were defined as events in which the hourly sea level rose by at least 89 cm (99.99th percentile threshold) above the long-term average. The study examines: (i) the evolution of sea level, analysed through five components: local processes, tide, synoptic component (storm surge and basin-wide seiche), long-period sea-level variability and mean sea-level changes, (ii) the meteorological conditions, based on reanalysis series and fields (mean sea-level pressure, 10-m wind, 500-hPa surface geopotential heights), (iii) the impact of flooding on natural and built environments along the Croatian coastline, and (iv) the relevant scientific literature on these flood episodes. The study is complemented by the online catalogue, which contains supplementary information and is continuously updated with the latest flooding episodes (https://projekti.pmfst.unist.hr/floods/storm-surges/).
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Status: open (until 19 Apr 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-4044', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Mar 2025
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In this paper, titled “Catalogue of floods recorded at tide-gauge station Bakar in the northeastern Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean)”, the authors explore the dynamics of several flooding events that occurred in the northern Adriatic Sea. I compliment the authors for their in-depth data collection and analysis work. Nevertheless, some aspects mainly related to the manuscript structure and the sea level decomposition methodology need to be improved.
Manuscript structure: the paper is too long and needs to be restructured. My suggestions are: I) move the description of each event into separated annexes or cards that can be easily explored via a dedicated link included in Table 2; ii) the Summary and Conclusions sections should be improved and split into separated Results and Conclusions sections; iii) move Appendix A on the mean sea level into the Results section; iv) there’s to much overlap between what reported in the Introduction and section 3.2 (Decomposition of sea-level and meteorological series). Please provide a general description of the processes in the Introduction and include the detailed methodology only in section 3.2.
Sea level decomposition: being aware that the observed sea level is the result of the (linear) sum of different processes, the authors considered the following contributions local processes, tide, synoptic component, long-period sea-level component and mean sea-level changes. In my opinion, the analysis needs to be adjusted and refined. In particular:
- local processes: since the decomposition is performed over the time dimension, it is not clear how you linked the temporal scale (9h) to the spatial scale and decided to call this component “local processes”? What's the spatial extent of local? Moreover, some processes, e.g. (meteo)tsunami, induce sea level oscillations within the considered temporal range but are not local dynamics. I strongly suggest using a different term, e.g. high-frequency oscillations. Why did you use the time threshold of 9h instead of 10h as in Ferrarin et al., (2021) and Šepić et al. (2022)?
- long-period sea-level component: the term "long-period sea-level variability" creates confusion with the longer time-scale contributions (seasonal, inter-annual, ...). I strongly suggest using the term planetary-scale variability.
- mean sea-level change: this term is generally used to describe only the long-term (decadal to secular) sea level variability. Therefore, this contribution must be split into three parts: seasonal, interannual and long-term (mean sea-level change) using the time windows described in lines 194-197. The resulting three components should be presented and discussed separately.
My minor suggestions for ameliorating the manuscript are listed here:
- Line 6: add “less than 50 m …”
- Line 44: “If hourly data …” I don't think you would obtain different considerations in case of data at a different frequency (e.g., 2h, 3h, 10min, ...)? Please remove the first part of this sentence.
- Line 47: tide is relevant even in the north-western part of the Adriatic Sea.
- Line 113: include the website link.
- Line 117: remove C3S from the citation.
- Lines 2100-2103: specify here the relative role of sea level rise.
- Figure 73: The readability of this figure is complicated by the black bars (indicating the hypothetical SL maxima) in panels c and d. Please remove them. Moreover, I strongly suggest using a realistic temporal scale on the x-axis to show the real distribution of the events in time.
- Figure A2: Use the same y-axis range in all panels.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4044-RC1
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