The city of Venice and the homonymous lagoon are objects of great historic, ecologic and economic interest. The most known and debated symptom of the frailty of the Venetian lagoon system are the periodic storm surge events that afflict Venice, referred to as “acqua alta”. An increased impact of storm surges on Venice has been observed in recent decades, and the rise in the future of the local mean relative sea level, as a consequence of global warming, may lead to dramatic impacts on both the historical center and the surrounding ecosystem.
However, currently available studies based on long-term future climate projections provide contrasting results about the expected changes in the relative mean sea level in the Venice lagoon. Such discrepancies stem especially from the different approaches followed to downscale projected global mean sea level changes in the Mediterranean, then in the Adriatic and ultimately in the lagoon of Venice. Thus, we propose to establish a multidisciplinary, international working group drawing from the fields of geophysics and numerical modelling that contributes to (i) critically discuss the current state of knowledge about the mean relative sea level in Venice and its near-term predictability, (ii) synthesize new results achieved in the next couple of years within ongoing research projects on the topic, and (iii) set up of future research activities focused on the Venice lagoon under a globally changing climate.
The splinter meeting is thought as a first step toward the establishment of such working group. It will allow to gather together potentially interested participants of sessions ITS4.2/CL4.21/HS11.21/OS2.11, OS2.5, OS1.1, NH5.7 and ITS4.7/NH1.26/AS4.48/CL2.08/HS4.3.3/NP9.9, among others. At the splinter meeting we will outline and discuss our ideas on the working group, its scope and its activities.
The splinter meeting is public, but we have sent invitations to key participants.