12th Plinius Conference on Mediterranean Storms

Objectives of the Conference

Since its advent, the Plinius Conference series on Mediterranean Storms has provided a crucial interdisciplinary contribution for improving our understanding of hazardous storms over the Mediterranean basin capable of producing strong winds, heavy rains, explosive landslides, and other related extremes. The objective of the 2010 Conference, the 12th of the series, is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for presentations and discussions of our current state of knowledge, as well as motivating new research and applications within the variety of disciplines related to Mediterranean storms and concomitant human hazards.

Over these last 11 years, we have achieved enormous success in our understanding of many of the basic scientific aspects of the triggering, growth, maintenance, and physical impacts of Mediterranean storms, as well as achieving acceptable levels in some of the areas of model prediction concerning storm lifecycles and their hazardous impacts. Given this progress, at this year's conference, we are encouraging an even greater focus on interdisciplinary participation. This will be achieved by continuing to reach out to scientific experts in the fields of meteorology, climatology, hydrology, and geomorphology, but also extending our reach into the disciplines of oceanography, sociology, economics, engineering, and the government management sector. Experts from these additional disciplines will be able to present their own unique perspectives on how to understand and manage storm-related disasters across the Mediterranean basin.

Scientific topics will be wide ranging, including: (i) the nature and physical processes of extreme events; (ii) possible changes in storm behaviour resulting from anticipated changes in climate; (iii) advanced techniques to observe, monitor and forecast hazardous storms; and (iv) relationships between atmospheric and surface processes for both land and sea situations, with particular emphasis on the effects of coupled processes in generating damaging floods and landslides. Further, socio-economic implications of hazardous storms, as well as lectures focused on risk mitigation and resilience in the framework of sustainable development are mostly welcome.

Issues to be addressed by the 12th Plinius Conference on Mediterranean Storms will generally fit within one of the following 11 topic areas:

• Topic 1: Societal Impacts, Risk Management, Responses, and Education
• Topic 2: Climate Change Impacts on Mediterranean Storms
• Topic 3: Paleofloods and Historical Information on Damaging Mediterranean Storms
• Topic 4: Remote Sensing of storms
• Topic 5: Storm Processes
• Topic 6: Mesoscale Modelling, Data Assimilation and Operational Meteorological Forecasting
• Topic 7: Hydrological Processes, Modelling and Operational Hydrological Forecasting
• Topic 8: Flash Floods: From Observations to Forecasting
• Topic 9: Nowcasting
• Topic 10: Air-Sea Interactions, Ocean Waves, and Coastal Surges
• Topic 11: Rainfall-Triggered Landslides and Coastal Landslides/Erosion

The Conference will be organized into topical sessions, roughly related to the 11 topics given, co-convened by two or three members of the Scientific Committee and/or Steering Committee. When submitting an abstract, please indicate the topic area to which your abstract is most closely related.