Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

Why Bushfires raged out of control across Australia?

Davide Faranda January 22, 2020

A diagram showing how pyrocumulonimbus clouds are formed. Credits: Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria.

Australian wildfires have burned an impressively large surface and caused the death of at least 24 citizens as well as of numerous animals. This immense disaster raises questions about its linkage with climate change, the possibility of controlling these events and the future of Australian wildlife ecosystems. While the first question will be addressed by soon to come attribution studies, and the ...[Read More]

After Lorenzo and Ophelia, should we prepare European coasts for tropical storms and hurricanes?

Davide Faranda October 15, 2019

probability forecasts of tropical storm force winds issued by the National Hurrican Center issued on 02/10/2019. Source: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at3.shtml?tswind120? .

Autumn is hurricane season in the north tropics and indeed 2019 does not make exception from this point of view. After Dorian hitting Bahamas and North Carolina, the American National Hurricane Center named Lorenzo a tropical depression originating near Capo Verde. On September 25th Lorenzo became a category 1 hurricane, according to the Saffir-Simpson scale. This scale categorizes the hurricanes ...[Read More]

June Heatwave 2019: can we attribute the event to anthropogenic emission?

Davide Faranda July 25, 2019

2 meters GFS temperature anomalies with respect to the 1981-2010 CFSR climatology. Source http://www.tropicaltidbits.com.

If August Rodin had lived nowadays, he would have placed his gates of hell (la Porte de l’Enfer) in Gallargues-le-Montueux, where the absolute French temperature record (45.9 °C) was set on June 28th this year. The last week of June has been very hot, not only in the south of France, but overall central Europe: in the Alps, some locations such as Chamonix (France) and Aosta (Italy) experienced tem ...[Read More]