NP
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
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Davide Faranda

I’m researcher in physics at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). I’m an expert of weather extreme events such as cold spells, heatwaves, cyclones and severe thunderstorms. My research activity focuses on the attribution of extreme events to climate change, that is understanding how much greenhouse gases influence the occurrence of extremes

Back in Green: The Return of Pineapple Express to California

March 18, 2023
Back in Green: The Return of Pineapple Express to California
Satellite imagery via NASA Worldview from the Terra satellite. Source https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

If you Google Pineapple Express you’re likely to end-up with a stoner movie comedy, but for those who live on the West Coast of North America, it has an entirely different meaning. Pineapple Express is a weather phenomenon that refers to a strong atmospheric river that brings heavy rain and moisture to the region. Despite the shared name, the two Pineapple Expresses couldn’t be more di ...[Read More]

El Niño is back: What it Means for Global Warming?

March 16, 2023
El Niño is back: What it Means for Global Warming?
El Niño vs la Niña schematic representation of wind anomalies (arrows) and ocean temperature anomalies (colors). source: https://thecolumn.ahacentre.org/insight/vol-66-getting-to-know-el-nino-la-nina/

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has just announced that the La Niña episode has officially ended, and from autumn onwards, it should give way to an El Niño phase. But what does that mean? And what is the influence of these weather phenomena on global warming?For those who have never heard of La Niña before, here’s an explanation of this phenomenon. The Earth rotates, so there are ...[Read More]

Climate Tipping Points through the “eyes” of the Masters: a virtual art exhibition

January 26, 2023
Tipping points in the climate system

We are running out of time in fighting the effects of climate change. With the greenhouse gasses emissions steady, the planet is reaching warming levels that could cause some large ecosystems to tip in different states. A tipping point in the climate system refers to a threshold beyond which a small change in a particular variable can cause a significant and potentially irreversible change in the ...[Read More]

Can Artificial Intelligence replace scientists to explain Climate Change? Find it out in our first interview to… ChatGPT!

January 3, 2023
Can Artificial Intelligence replace scientists to explain Climate Change? Find it out in our first interview to… ChatGPT!

Figure: DallE (the visual cousin of ChatGPT) has produced this image when I asked for “a cartoon showing a climatologist with research articles walking on a weather map”   As a communication officer of the division of Nonlinear Processes I started to write posts for the EGU blog a few years ago and I found it a very difficult task: one has to find the right scientific sources about arguments ...[Read More]