Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

How climate change can possibly increase the intensity of tornadoes in Europe

Davide Faranda October 26, 2022

The tornado that devastated Nord-Pas-de-Calais on Sunday 23 October 2022. ©Wouter van Bernebeek /Twitter @StormchaserNL

On October 23 2022, a tornado outbreak occurred in France, causing extensive damages. Tornadoes in France are a relatively rare phenomenon, even more so in the second half of October. This weather phenomenon is linked to intense thunderstorms, and it is difficult to predict because it is very localized. Will global warming make this weather more frequent or intense? A thundercloud that grows visib ...[Read More]

NPG Paper of the Month: “Application of a local attractor dimension to reduced space strongly coupled data assimilation for chaotic multiscale systems”

Tommaso Alberti April 23, 2020

Local dynamical properties of a segment of an example run for the coupled Lorenz system. (a) Alignment of directions of error growth plotted along the x coordinate of the ocean subsystem. Large orange stars indicate high alignment of error growth in the unstable or neutral subspaces. (b) Finite-time Lyapunov exponents (FTLEs) computed over window τ = 4. (c) Local Kaplan-Yorke dimension calculated from FTLEs. (Source: Quinn, O’Kane, and Kitsios, Application of a local attractor dimension to reduced space strongly coupled data assimilation for chaotic multiscale systems, Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 27, 51–74, 2020, https://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/27/51/2020/. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

This month the NPG Paper of the Month award is achieved by Courtney Quinn for her paper “Application of a local attractor dimension to reduced space strongly coupled data assimilation for chaotic multiscale systems” (https://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/27/51/2020/). Dr. Courtney obtained her PhD in Mathematics at the University of Exeter (UK) researching critical transitions in dynamical syst ...[Read More]

How Climate Sciences can help in understanding uncertainties in Covid-19 epidemic projections

Davide Faranda March 31, 2020

Artistic view of the Covid-19 virus moving along an increasing trend.

COVID-19 is currently affecting over 180 countries in the world and poses serious threats to public health as well as economic and social stability of many countries. Modeling and extrapolating in near real-time the evolution of COVID-19 epidemics is a scientific challenge, which requires a deep understanding of the factors undermining the dynamics of the epidemics. Despite the importance of havin ...[Read More]