Ivica Vilibić

Ruđer Bošković Institute | RBI · Division for Marine and Environmental Research

Addressing the need for clear communication in Mediterranean oceanography, this study presents a revised and comprehensive catalogue of water mass acronyms. Although there is no universal set of standard rules for assigning acronyms to water masses, as these can vary among different research groups, regions, or scientific communities, scientists ge...

Navigating the Future VI is a flagship foresight EMB Position Paper that explores the role of the Ocean in the wider Earth system and promotes collaboration between disciplines to tackle global issues. This document aims to influence and guide international, European and national research funding programmes, policy development and inspire the scien...

The North Adriatic Dense Water (NAddW)—the densest Mediterranean water generated by extreme cooling during wintertime hurricane‐strength winds—drives the thermohaline circulation, ventilates the deep layers, and changes the biogeochemical properties of the Adriatic Sea. However, modeling the dynamical properties of such dense water at the climate s...

With its complex and peculiar meteo-oceanographic dynamics and the coexistence of diverse socioeconomic activities and pressures with outstanding cultural heritage and environmental assets, the Adriatic basin (Mediterranean Sea) has traditionally been considered as a natural laboratory for marine science in its broadest meaning. In recent years the...

The impact of climate warming on coastal benthic fauna is already observed, but forecasting their long‐term fate remains challenging. This study uses δ¹⁸Oshell data of specimens of five bivalve species collected at six locations and results from kilometer‐scale atmosphere–ocean climate model for the time intervals of 1987–2017 and 2070–2100, to est...

The North Adriatic Dense Water (NAddW) – the densest Mediterranean water generated by extreme cooling during wintertime hurricane-strength winds – drives the thermohaline circulation, ventilates the deep layers, and changes the biogeochemical properties of the Adriatic Sea. However, modelling the dynamical properties of such dense water at the clim...

Primary production in the northern Adriatic (NAd) reaches its yearly peak in the winter with high-intensity variations from year to year. According to the hypothesis, the intensity of local winter primary production, controlled by the degree of the spreading of Po River waters across the NAd, reflects on the annual secondary production of the ongoi...

Due to orography-driven dynamics at a (sub-)kilometer scale (e.g., the bora wind) and a complex ocean bathymetry that includes numerous channels, depressions and ridges, the atmosphere-ocean dynamics within the semi-enclosed Adriatic region is not well reproduced by the available regional climate models. The Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) kilomete...

Global climate models, indispensable for projecting the human-driven climate change, have been improving for decades and are nowadays capable of reproducing multiple processes (e.g., aerosols, sea-ice, carbon cycle) at up to 25 km horizontal resolution. Meteotsunami events – tsunami waves generated by mesoscale atmospheric processes – are properly...

We study, for the first time, the physical coupling and detectability of meteotsunamis in the earth’s atmosphere. We study the June 13, 2013 event off the US East Coast using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) measurements, Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) temperatures, and ground-...

This study aims to enhance our understanding of the bora-driven dense-water dynamics in the Adriatic Sea using different state-of-the-art modelling approaches during the 2014–2015 period. Practically, we analyse and compare the results of the following four different simulations: the latest reanalysis product for the Mediterranean Sea, a recently e...

Due to on-going global warming, extreme storm surges are expected to threaten a greater number of coastal communities worldwide. However, global and regional climate simulations of extreme events are still not accurate enough to respond to the growing needs of the local decision makers to prepare for these rising hazards. We present a new approach...

This review first pays tribute to the famous Croatian oceanographer, Mira Zore-Armanda, and her seminal work on the Adriatic water masses in 1963, and emphasises the importance of the densest Mediterranean water mass: North Adriatic Dense Water (NAddW). This water mass is generated through substantial wintertime surface cooling and evaporation over...

We present the Adriatic atmosphere–ocean trends and variability simulated by the kilometer-scale Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) climate model during the 1987–2017 period. As the AdriSC model has been successfully validated over the entire basin against an extensive dataset of in situ measurements and remote sensing products, the reliability of the...

This chapter provides a general background on the dynamics of the sea surface from the short time and spatial scales of the gravity waves produced by the wind to long scales produced by planetary waves. It considers marine storms (including wind waves and storm surges), astronomical tides, and tsunamis (including events caused by earthquakes, lands...

Since the adoption of the Habitats and Birds Directives by EU governments, marine Natura 2000 (N2K) sites have been established in the European Mediterranean Sea, creating one of the largest international networks of protected areas. Nevertheless, to date, marine N2K sites are generally scarcely implemented, studied and monitored, and thus their ma...

This study aims to enhance our understanding of the bora-driven dense water dynamics in the Adriatic Sea using different state-of-the-art modelling approaches during the 2014–15 period. Practically, we analyse and compare the results of four different simulations: the latest reanalysis product for the Mediterranean Sea, the recently evaluated fine-...

Low-tidal coastal regions, such as the Baltic Sea, are known to be particularly vulnerable to exceptional high-frequency sea level oscillations such as meteotsunamis. Possibilities of studying sub-hourly sea level variations have recently improved, owing to advancement in temporal resolution of tide gauge observations. In this work, we study high-f...

Worldwide tsunamis driven by atmospheric waves-or planetary meteotsunami waves-are extremely rare events. They mostly occur during supervolcano explosions or asteroid impacts capable to generate atmospheric acoustic-gravity waves including the Lamb waves that can circle the globe multiple times. Recently, such ocean waves have been globally recorde...

The strongest episodes of extremely high sea levels in the Mediterranean are regularly observed in the Adriatic Sea, where they can cause substantial damage and loss of human lives. In this study, episodes of positive and negative sea level extremes were extracted from hourly series measured at six tide-gauge stations located along the Adriatic coa...

Reliability of climate change projections in coastal and shallow seas may be largely influenced by complex air-ocean-land interactions, like in the northernmost shelf of the Mediterranean, the Northern Adriatic (NAd). However, classification of winter characteristics in the NAd may be simplified following the observed cross-basin bottom density dis...

With the increase of available global observations at a minute resolution, emerging studies of high-frequency sea-level oscillations have already produced climatologies and explored the atmospheric processes driving the related flooding events, in a qualitative manner and/or at a very local scale. In the presented work, however, the global connecti...

There is growing evidence that many large coastal boulder deposits found on the exposed rocky ocean shores were deposited by extreme storm waves rather than by catastrophic tsunamis, as previously thought. In addition, before the first discovery in the northern Adriatic a few years ago, such deposits were not expected in relatively shallow semi-enc...

In this study the impact of the Adriatic-Ionian Bimodal Oscillating System (BiOS) on the interannual to decadal variability of the Adriatic Sea thermohaline circulation is quantified during the 1987-2017 period with the numerical results of the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) historical kilometer-scale climate simulation. The time series associated...

Employed for over a century, the traditional way of monitoring sea level variability by tide gauges – in combination with modern observational techniques like satellite altimetry – is an inevitable ingredient in sea level studies over the climate scales and in coastal seas. The development of the instrumentation, remote data acquisition, processing...

The article aims to quantify a multiyear ocean temperature change at a shallow (5 m) coastal site in the northeastern Adriatic. Measurements were taken between May 2014 and May 2021 with an hourly resolution, allowing for an extraction of temperature variations over longer-term, seasonal, synoptic, quasi-diurnal and hourly timescales. As expected f...

Due to the semi-enclosed nature of the Mediterranean Sea, natural disasters and anthropogenic activities impose stronger pressures on its coastal ecosystems than in any other sea of the world. With the aim of responding adequately to science priorities and societal challenges, littoral waters must be effectively monitored with high-frequency radar...

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate-change hot spot, with many socioeconomically vital coastal areas being the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, high-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining...

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climatechange hot spot, with many socioeconomically vital coastal areas being the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, high-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining...

Due to the semi-enclosed nature of the Mediterranean Sea, natural disasters and anthropogenic activities impose stronger pressures on its coastal ecosystems than in any other sea of the world. With the aim of responding adequately to science priorities and societal challenges, littoral waters must be effectively monitored with high-frequency radar...

Worldwide tsunamis generated by atmospheric waves-or planetary meteotsunami waves-are extremely rare events occurring during supervolcano explosions or asteroid impacts. Recently, such waves have been globally recorded after the Hunga volcano eruption (Tonga) but did not pose any serious danger to the coastal communities. However, this study highli...

Tsunamis constitute a significant hazard for European coastal populations, and the impact of tsunami events worldwide can extend well beyond the coastal regions directly affected. Understanding the complex mechanisms of tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation, as well as managing the tsunami risk, requires multidisciplinary research and inf...

The study describes recent decadal changes (2008–2017) in the landing biomass, fishing effort and CPUE (kg/day) data of European lobster Homarus gammarus in the eastern Adriatic Sea region, and relates these changes to increases of sea bottom temperatures detected at long-term in situ stations and modelled by an ocean numerical model (ROMS, Regiona...

Due to on-going global warming, extreme storm-surges are expected to threaten a greater number of coastal communities worldwide. However, global and regional climate simulations of extreme events are still not accurate enough to respond to the growing needs of the local decision makers to prepare for these rising hazards. Here, we present a new met...

This Policy Brief succinctly presents the Ecological Observing System of the Adriatic Sea (ECOAdS), aimed at integrating the ecological and oceanographic dimensions within the conservation strategy of the Natura 2000 network, and to propose a way to go for its future development and maintenance. After a definition of marine ecological observatories...

This paper provides global climatology of high-frequency (T < 2 h) sea-level oscillations of atmospheric origin. Sea-level series with a temporal resolution of 1 min from 331 tide gauges in the world ocean and spanning between 1.5 and 12 years were analysed to determine the typical ranges, seasons and characteristics of moderate and extreme manifes...

Due to a lack of suitable coupled atmosphere‐ocean modeling tools, the atmospheric source mechanisms that trigger the potentially destructive meteotsunami waves – which occur with periods ranging from a few minutes to a few hours – have remained partially unexplored until recently. In this process‐oriented numerical work we therefore investigate an...

Spanning over a century, a traditional way to monitor sea level variability by tide gauges is-in combination with modern observational techniques like satellite altimetry-an inevitable ingredient in sea level studies over the climate scales and in coastal seas. The development of the instrumentation, remote data acquisition, processing and archivin...

With the increase of available global observations at a minute resolution, emerging studies of high-frequency sea-level oscillations have already produced climatologies and explored the atmospheric processes driving the related flooding events, in a qualitative manner and/or at a very local scale. In the presented work, however, the global connecti...

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate change hot spot, being their socio-economically vital coastal areas the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, High-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining re...

Due to the semi-enclosed nature of the Mediterranean Sea, natural disasters and anthropogenic activities impose stronger pressures on its coastal ecosystems than in any other sea of the world. With the aim of responding adequately to science priorities and societal challenges, littoral waters must be effectively monitored with High-Frequency radar...

In this study the impact of the Adriatic-Ionian Bimodal Oscillating System (BiOS) on the interannual to decadal variability of the Adriatic Sea thermohaline circulation is quantified during the 1987-2017 period with the numerical results of the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) historical kilometer-scale climate simulation. The time series associated...

In this study, the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) kilometre-scale atmosphere–ocean climate model covering the Adriatic Sea and northern Ionian Sea is presented. The AdriSC ocean results of a 31-year-long (i.e. 1987–2017) climate simulation, derived with the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) 3 km and 1 km models, are evaluated with respect to a...

Sea-level observations provide information on a variety of processes occurring over different temporal and spatial scales that may contribute to coastal flooding and hazards. However, global research on sea-level extremes is restricted to hourly datasets, which prevent the quantification and analyses of processes occurring at timescales between a f...

This study quantifies the performance of the Croatian meteotsunami early warning system (CMeEWS) composed of a network of air pressure and sea level observations, a high-resolution atmosphere–ocean modelling suite, and a stochastic surrogate model. The CMeEWS, which is not operational due to a lack of numerical resources, is used retroactively to r...

The paper aims to describe the preconditioning and observations of exceptionally high salinity values that were observed in summer and autumn of 2017 in the Adriatic. The observations encompassed CTD measurements carried out along the well-surveyed climatological transect in the Middle Adriatic (the Palagruža Sill, 1961–2020), Argo profiling floats...

In this evaluation study, the coupled atmosphere–ocean Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) climate model, which was implemented to carry out 31-year evaluation and climate projection simulations in the Adriatic and northern Ionian seas, is briefly presented. The kilometre-scale AdriSC atmospheric results, derived with the Weather Research and Forecasti...

In this study, the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) kilometre-scale atmosphere-ocean climate model covering the Adriatic and northern Ionian Seas is presented. The AdriSC ocean results of a 31-year long (i.e. 1987-2017) climate simulation, derived with the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) 3-km and 1-km models, are evaluated with respect to a co...

Coastal hazards linked to extreme sea-level events are projected to have a direct impact (by flooding) on 630 million of people by year 2100. Numerous operational forecasts already provide coastal hazard assessments around the world. However, they are largely based on either deterministic tools (e.g., numerical ocean and atmospheric models) or ense...

Sea-level observations provide information on a variety of processes occurring over different temporal and spatial scales that may contribute to coastal flooding and hazards. However, global research of sea-level extremes is restricted to hourly datasets, which prevent quantification and analyses of processes occurring at timescales between a few m...

Due to a lack of appropriate modelling tools, the atmospheric source mechanisms triggering the potentially destructive meteotsunami waves – occurring at periods from a few minutes to a few hours – have remained partially unstudied till recently. In this numerical work we thus investigate and quantify the impacts of orography and extreme climate cha...

In this evaluation study, the coupled atmosphere-ocean Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) climate model, which was implemented to carry out 31-year long evaluation and climate projection simulations in the Adriatic and northern Ionian seas, is briefly presented. The kilometre-scale AdriSC atmospheric results, derived with the Weather Research and Fore...

This study documents the atmospheric system driving the observed meteotsunami waves that hit the northern Persian Gulf on 19 March 2017 during high tide. This destructive meteotsunami event resulted in coastal inundations that reached several hundred metres inland along the 100-km coastline between the cities of Dayyer and Asaluyeh and caused the d...

This paper presents the first comprehensive review of the Mediterranean and Black Sea meteorological tsunamis or meteotsunamis (atmospherically induced destructive long ocean waves in the tsunami frequency band) based on the available literature, tools and services. The Mediterranean and Black Seas are micro-tidal basins; therefore, rapid sea level...

The paper presents sea level and air pressure observations acquired during the 2007 experiment carried out along the southwestern coast of Sicily. The experiment aimed to quantify the atmospheric and oceanic conditions related with the phenomenon of marrobbio, a kind of meteotsunami that is frequently observed in the Strait of Sicily. Sea level dat...