Can hot water discharged from industrial processes enhance the likelihood of waterspouts?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether heated wastewater discharged into the sea by industry influences waterspout formation near Rosignano Solvay, finding that mesoscale meteorological conditions are the primary factors and the impact of warm water discharge is minimal.

Contribution

The paper combines high-resolution modeling and sensitivity experiments to assess the influence of industrial warm water discharge on waterspout likelihood, concluding its effect is minor compared to natural atmospheric conditions.

Findings

Mesoscale conditions are key in waterspout formation.

Warm water discharge has a negligible impact on local instability indices.

Industrial discharge could slightly increase sea surface temperature by about 0.7°C over two months.

Abstract

Italy and the surrounding seas are recognised as one of the European hotspots for tornadoes and waterspouts. In recent years, the town of Rosignano Solvay (on the Northern Tyrrhenian coast) experienced repeated waterspouts affecting the same areas, raising local concern about the possible influence of heated wastewater discharged into the sea by a nearby industrial site. We reconstruct the mesoscale meteorological conditions of four intense waterspouts near Rosignano Solvay using a limited-area weather model at high-to-very-high resolution (inner domain grid spacing 500 m; sensitivity tests at 100 m). At the reported event times, the intensity of key mesoscale precursors (low-level wind shear, 1 km storm-relative helicity, maximum updraft intensity, and lifting condensation level) is consistent with the values typically associated with EF1 (or stronger) tornadoes and waterspouts. The model systematically predicts the peak of instability indices 2-3 hours earlier than the reported event times. For one case study, we conduct two sea surface temperature sensitivity experiments to assess the potential atmospheric impact of heated wastewater discharge (temperature increases of +1.5 K and +5 K over a 10 km$^2$ area). The resulting changes in instability indices are marginal, with differences of at most 3\% relative to the control run. A simple mass-balance estimate for the modified sea patch suggests that, given the reported discharge rates, a plausible impact of the warm water released from the industrial site could lead to an increase in the local sea surface temperature of approximately +0.7 {\deg}C over two months. We conclude that synoptic and mesoscale conditions primarily govern waterspout initiation in this region, while the direct effect of the small, warm coastal plume from the industrial discharge appears to be minor.