Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

From the eyes of tropical cyclones to flooded strands : how climatologists use weather events to make climate predictions?

Davide Faranda October 26, 2021

Hurricane Florence seen from space: Credits: ESA/A.Gerst, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

While extreme events are meteorological in nature, climatologists collect them to draw conclusions about the state of the present climate and to get clues how they possibly change in the future. Thus, climate and weather find common ground. If we consider an event alone, we are not studying the climate, we are in the field of meteorology, the goal of climatologists is therefore to put extreme even ...[Read More]

The 2021 Nobel Prize on Physics awarded to the physics of complex systems!

Valerio Lembo October 25, 2021

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021. Credits: https://www.nobelprize.org.

On October 7th, the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was announced. It came as a stunning surprise for the Non-linear Processes and Climate communities, the recipients of this year’s award being two outstanding senior climate scientists, Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe, and a theoretical physicist specialized in complex systems, Giorgio Parisi. For many, this award was welcomed as a long-awaited re ...[Read More]

The most-read NPG 2020 paper: “Effects of upwelling duration and phytoplankton growth regime on dissolved-oxygen levels in an idealized Iberian Peninsula upwelling system”

Tommaso Alberti January 29, 2021

(a) Snapshot of dissolved oxygen distribution in the upwelling front instabilities for the ECS simulation (γ is the Okubo-Weiss criterion). (b) Dissolved Oxygen budget in the idealized Iberian Peninsula Upwelling System. Net value is the sum of Physical, Biological and Atmospheric processes that change oxygen concentration levels. Physics accounts for the effect of upwelled subsurface waters and offshore transport by upwelling front instabilities. Biology term accounts for oxygen photosynthetic production and community respiration. Simulations performed are ECS (short upwelling season with enhanced phytoplankton growth), ECC (long upwelling season with enhanced phytoplankton growth), NCC (long upwelling season with neutral phytoplankton growth) and LCC (long upwelling season with limited phytoplankton growth). License: Effects of upwelling duration and phytoplankton growth regime on dissolved-oxygen levels in an idealized Iberian Peninsula upwelling system.

An emerging problem brought by climate change is the on-going deoxygenation of the world’s oceans. The fact that concentrations of dissolved oxygen have been/are declining in both open-ocean and coastal waters is becoming a major scientific and societal concern raised in the Kiel Declaration and in the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) 2019 report. Lower levels of dissolved oxy ...[Read More]

NP Campfire: “Perspectives on Climate Science: from historical developments to research frontiers”

Tommaso Alberti January 19, 2021

Recently, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) started to support a new type of event called ‘Campfires’ that will give the Divisions the freedom to run online interactive events in a way that suits their needs. This allows the EGU Divisions to encourage interactions in their research communities through virtual informal meetings. In this framework, and thanks to a group of young and established s ...[Read More]