ALBERT

Description: Reconciling the paths of extreme rainfall with those of typhoons remains difficult despite advanced forecasting techniques. We use complex networks defined by a nonlinear synchronization measure termed event synchronization to track extreme rainfall over the Japanese islands. Directed networks objectively record patterns of heavy rain brought by frontal storms and typhoons but mask out contributions of local convective storms. We propose a radial rank method to show that paths of extreme rainfall in the typhoon season (August-November, ASON) follow the overall southwest-northeast motion of typhoons and mean rainfall gradient of Japan. The associated eye-of-the-typhoon tracks deviate notably and may thus distort estimates of heavy typhoon rainfall. We mainly found that the lower spread of rainfall tracks in ASON may enable better hindcasting than for westerly-fed frontal storms in June and July. Complex network is a special type of graph describing meaningful interactions of real life systems (e.g., social, biological); it is also a popular tool to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of climate systems, such as extreme precipitation. Tropical storms incur substantial losses each year, particularly in the western Pacific. Despite many advances in their monitoring and forecasting, the dynamics of extreme rainfall patterns remains partly unresolved. We use complex networks for investigating how extreme rainfall correlates in space and time during the passage of tropical storm over the Japanese archipelago. We found that the rainfall tracks consistently diverge from eye-of-the-typhoon tracks, while the mean difference in track azimuths decreases from frontal storm (June-July) to typhoon seasons (August-November). This outcome might increase the predictability of the extreme precipitation during the typhoon season

Description: Quantitative estimates of sea‐level rise in the Mediterranean Basin become increasingly accurate thanks to detailed satellite monitoring. However, such measuring campaigns cover several years to decades, while longer‐term sea‐level records are rare for the Mediterranean. We used a data archeological approach to reanalyze monthly mean sea‐level data of the Antalya‐I (1935–1977) tide gauge to fill this gap. We checked the accuracy and reliability of these data before merging them with the more recent records of the Antalya‐II (1985–2009) tide gauge, accounting for an eight‐year hiatus. We obtain a composite time series of monthly and annual mean sea levels spanning some 75 years, providing the longest record for the eastern Mediterranean Basin, and thus an essential tool for studying the region's recent sea‐level trends. We estimate a relative mean sea‐level rise of 2.2 ± 0.5 mm/year between 1935 and 2008, with an annual variability (expressed here as the standard deviation of the residuals, σresiduals = 41.4 mm) above that at the closest tide gauges (e.g., Thessaloniki, Greece, σresiduals = 29.0 mm). Relative sea‐level rise accelerated to 6.0 ± 1.5 mm/year at Antalya‐II; we attribute roughly half of this rate (~3.6 mm/year) to tectonic crustal motion and anthropogenic land subsidence. Our study highlights the value of data archeology for recovering and integrating historic tide gauge data for long‐term sea‐level and climate studies.