The present article is a study of the applicability of different sources of meteorological forcing for the coastal wave and storm surge models, which provide the operational marine forecasts for the coastal early warning systems (EWS) and are used for reconstructions of historical storms. The reconstructions of historical storms are one of the approaches to the natural coastal hazard assessment. We evaluate the importance of the input meteorological information for the mentioned types of coastal models. For two well documented historical storms, that caused significant damages along the Bulgarian coast we simulate the significant wave heights and sea level change, using SWAN wave model and a storm surge model. The wind and mean sea level pressure fields, which are used in the present study, are extracted from the ERA Interim reanalysis of the European Center for Medium range Forecasts (ECMWF) and from the output of the high resolution limited area numerical weather prediction model ALADIN. The overall conclusion is that for the successful historical storms reconstructions ERA Interim and ERA40 reanalysis are valuable source of meteorological forcing, but due to their limitations in terms of spatial and temporal resolution, it is recommended to produce a higher spatial and temporal resolution meteorological fields, using dynamical downscaling of the reanalyzed data.

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In the present study we evaluate the approaches to estimate the wave energy potential of the western Black Sea shelf with numerical models. For the purpose of our evaluation and due to the lack of long time series of measurements in the selected area of the Black Sea, we compare the modeled mean wave power flux output from the SWAN wave model with the only available long term measurements from the buoy of Gelendzhik for the period 1997-2003 (with gaps). The forcing meteorological data for the numerical wave models for the selected years is extracted from the ERA Interim reanalysis of ECMWF (European Centre for Medium range Forecasts). For the year 2003 we also compare the estimated wave power with the modeled by SWAN, using ALADIN regional atmospheric model winds. We try to identify the shortcomings and limitations of the numerical modeling approach to the evaluation of the wave energy potential in Black Sea.

Abstract. Winds, waves and storm surges can inflict severe damage in coastal areas. In order to improve preparedness for such events, a better understanding of storm-induced coastal flooding episodes is necessary. To this end, this paper highlights the use of atmospheric downscaling techniques in order to improve wave and storm surge hindcasts. The downscaling techniques used here are based on existing European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reanalyses (ERA-20C, ERA-40 and ERA-Interim). The results show that the 10 km resolution data forcing provided by a downscaled atmospheric model gives a better wave and surge hindcast compared to using data directly from the reanalysis. Furthermore, the analysis of the most extreme mid-latitude cyclones indicates that a four-dimensional blending approach improves the whole process, as it assimilates more small-scale processes in the initial conditions. Our approach has been successfully applied to ERA-20C (the 20th century reanalysis).