HYMEX, AN EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM DEDICATED TO THE HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

摘要

The Mediterranean basin has quite a unique character that results both from physiographic conditions and historical and societal developments. The region features a nearly enclosed sea surrounded by very urbanized littorals and mountains from which numerous rivers originate (Fig. 1). This results in a lot of interactions and feedbacks between ocean-atmosphere-land processes that play a predominant role on climate and on high-impact weather. The Mediterranean area concentrates indeed the major natural risks related to water cycle, which include heavy precipitation and flash-flooding during the fall season, severe cyclogenesis associated with strong winds and large sea waves during winter, and heat waves and droughts accompanied by forest fires during summer. The capability to predict such high-impact events remains weak because of the contribution of very fine-scale processes and their non-linear interactions with the larger scale processes.