The chances of tornadoes and whirlwinds are growing in these years across the Mediterranean Sea, due to the rising of seawater’s temperature. According to a group of Italian researchers from Enea institute and Cnr, published on Nature’s Scientific Report, this is a consequence of global warming. Scientists analysed a tornado that stroke the Italian city of Taranto in 2012: in that case the seawater’s surface temperature was about one degrees higher than the average in that period.
«Violent tornadoes are generated by particular thunderstorm cells that could be formed only in particular weather conditions» said Vincenzo Motola, an Enea researcher who is an author of the report. «By experiments on a model, we proved that one degree’s variation on temperatures is enough to provoke the thunderstorm and the tornado» explained Motola.
According to the scientists, the rising of seawater temperature make the energy grow and this energy “feed” the thunderstorm cell. However, there’s no linearity between the increase of seawater temperatures and the tornado’s violence, which means that beyond a certain temperature the tornadoes could be really more violent.
To realise this study, Enea institute used data collected by Cnr. Scientist elaborated this data by the software Esri-Arc-Gis that produced a map capable to show how this phenomenon is spreading and how the orography could help tornadoes and whirlwinds.