<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" specific-use="SMUR" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-1549</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Evaluation of a Coupled Regional Reanalysis for the Mediterranean Region Covering the period 1993&amp;ndash;2024</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Storto</surname>
<given-names>Andrea</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3856-8905</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>de Toma</surname>
<given-names>Vincenzo</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1716-0997</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yang</surname>
<given-names>Chunxue</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7244-7114</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Marine Science (ISMAR), National Research Council (CNR), Rome, I-00133, Rome</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>National Research Center for High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing (ICSC), Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>31</day>
<month>03</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>35</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Andrea Storto et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1549/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1549/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1549/egusphere-2026-1549.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1549/egusphere-2026-1549.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Regional reanalyses provide physically consistent reconstructions of past climate, offering a powerful tool for understanding the processes that shape regional responses to climate change. Here, we introduce MESMAR-R, a newly developed coupled atmosphere-ocean-hydrology reanalysis for the Mediterranean region. The system couples state-of-the-art numerical models with data assimilation in both the ocean and the atmosphere, producing a dynamically coherent reconstruction of the 1993&amp;ndash;2024 period. MESMAR-R shows strong performance in the ocean, particularly for sea level, sea-surface salinity, and upper-layer temperature, confirming its skill in the layers most relevant for air&amp;ndash;sea interactions. The atmospheric component performs reasonably well given its simplified assimilation based on three-dimensional nudging, yielding basin-scale fields comparable to state-of-the-art reanalyses and maintaining internally consistent coupled air-sea interactions. Sensitivity experiments show that data assimilation in both the ocean and atmosphere is essential for optimal performance: coupling alone does not necessarily improve reanalysis skill, but its benefits are relevant for salinity and surface fluxes and amplify when complemented by data assimilation. The ocean and atmospheric trends reconstructed by MESMAR-R are physically coherent and consistent with observations, reproducing basin-wide salinification, thermo-halo compensation in steric sea level, mass-driven sea-level rise, and pronounced near-surface atmospheric warming and drying. MESMAR-R therefore provides a unique, balanced reconstruction of past Mediterranean climate, suitable for investigating coupled air&amp;ndash;sea processes, compound events, marine extremes, and other phenomena where dynamically consistent atmosphere&amp;ndash;ocean interactions are essential.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="35"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Ministero dell&apos;Università e della Ricerca</funding-source>
<award-id>CN00000013</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>