An analysis of the expected climate change effects in the vicinity of the main harbors from the Black Sea

The objective of this work is to analyze the dynamics of the environmental matrix in the context of climate change in the vicinity of the main harbors from the Black Sea. The main environmental parameters considered for analysis are wind and waves. The climatic wind fields provided by the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model are analyzed until the end of the 21st century, considering the results corresponding to the Representative Concentration Pathway scenario 4.5. These wind fields are used to force a wave modelling system based on the SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore) model. In this way, the wind and wave data expected along the entire 21st century in the vicinity of the most important harbors of the Black Sea are provided. From the analysis of these wind and wave data, an enhancement of the extreme wind conditions can be noticed. On the other hand, due to the high variability in the wind direction, the amplitudes of the extreme waves are expected to slightly decrease.