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Odessa Tsunami of 27 June 2014: Observations and Numerical Modelling

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Abstract

On 27 June, a 1–2-m high wave struck the beaches of Odessa, the third largest Ukrainian city, and the neighbouring port-town Illichevsk (northwestern Black Sea). Throughout the day, prominent seiche oscillations were observed in several other ports of the Black Sea. Tsunamigenic synoptic conditions were found over the Black Sea, stretching from Romania in the west to the Crimean Peninsula in the east. Intense air pressure disturbances and convective thunderstorm clouds were associated with these conditions; right at the time of the event, a 1.5-hPa air pressure jump was recorded at Odessa and a few hours earlier in Romania. We have utilized a barotropic ocean numerical model to test two hypotheses: (1) a tsunami-like wave was generated by an air pressure disturbance propagating directly over Odessa (“Experiment 1”); (2) a tsunami-like wave was generated by an air pressure disturbance propagating offshore, approximately 200 km to the south of Odessa, and along the shelf break (“Experiment 2”). Both experiments decisively confirm the meteorological origin of the tsunami-like waves on the coast of Odessa and imply that intensified long ocean waves in this region were generated via the Proudman resonance mechanism while propagating over the northwestern Black Sea shelf. The “Odessa tsunami” of 27 June 2014 was identified as a “beach meteotsunami”, similar to events regularly observed on the beaches of Florida, USA, but different from the “harbour meteotsunamis”, which occurred 1–3 days earlier in Ciutadella (Baleares, Spain), Mazara del Vallo (Sicily, Italy) and Vela Luka (Croatia) in the Mediterranean Sea, despite that they were associated with the same atmospheric system moving over the Mediterranean/Black Sea region on 23–27 June 2014.

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Modified from Šepić et al. (2015b)

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Similar figure but for 23–27 June 2017 is shown by Šepić et al. (2015b)

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fred Stephenson of the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Institute of Ocean Sciences (Sidney, British Columbia) for his support and helpful comments. We would like to thank all organisations that kindly provided us the data used in this study: European Centre for Middle-range Weather Forecast, Reading (www.ecmwf.int); European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (www.eumetsat.int); Romanian National Meteorological Administration, Bucharest; Bulgarian National Oceanographic Data Centre (BNODC), Varna; Hydrometeorological Centre of the Black and Azov Seas, Odessa; Sevastopol Hydrometeorological Observatory and Specialized Center for Hydrometeorology and Monitoring of Environment of Black and Azov Seas (SC HME BAS), Sochi. The work of JS has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project MESSI (UKF Grant No. 25/15) and for AR by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant 14-50-00095).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Šetalište I. Meštrovića 63, 21000, Split, Croatia

    Jadranka Šepić

  2. Department of Fisheries and Ocean, Institute of Ocean Sciences, 9860 W. Saanich Rd, Sidney, BC, Canada

    Alexander B. Rabinovich

  3. P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 36 Nakhimovsky Pr, Moscow, Russia

    Alexander B. Rabinovich

  4. Hydrometeorological Center on the Black and Azov Seas, 89 Franzusky Blvd, Odessa, Ukraine

    Victor N. Sytov

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  1. Jadranka Šepić
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Correspondence to Jadranka Šepić.

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Šepić, J., Rabinovich, A.B. & Sytov, V.N. Odessa Tsunami of 27 June 2014: Observations and Numerical Modelling. Pure Appl. Geophys. 175, 1545–1572 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1729-1

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