NP
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

Heatwaves

ECS Spotlight: Evolution of the Dynamics of Centennial Hot Summers in Western Europe With Climate Change

December 1, 2025
ECS Spotlight: Evolution of the Dynamics of Centennial Hot Summers in Western Europe With Climate Change

Extreme meteorological and climatological events can be immensely damaging and disruptive to society. Understanding the physical mechanisms driving these events, and how they will evolve with climate change is crucial for informing societal adaptation to our changing climate. However, extreme events are, by definition, rare. Our capacity to understand these events is, therefore, hindered by …[Read More]

ECS SpotLight: The link between European warm-temperature extremes and atmospheric persistence

September 11, 2023
ECS SpotLight: The link between European warm-temperature extremes and atmospheric persistence

Persistent atmospheric circulation patterns are not a necessary requirement for warm temperature extremes in Europe. This key finding from a recent study led by Emma Holmberg challenges a more traditional meteorological view of persistence, which typically considers summertime heatwaves, especially in northern regions of Europe, to be synonymous with persistent atmospheric flow patterns. Furthermore, wintertime …[Read More]

ECS SpotLight: Changes in the climate dynamics have already modified characteristics and impacts of storms in France: the case study of storm Alex 2020

April 6, 2023
ECS SpotLight: Changes in the climate dynamics have already modified characteristics and impacts of storms in France: the case study of storm Alex 2020

Extratropical cyclones play a key role in modulating the precipitation and wind in mid-latitudes and can be responsible for extreme wet and windy events. With global warming, the dynamics and thermodynamics associated with these atmospheric systems are being affected. However, due to the complexity of modelling the climate system, a challenge arises when evaluating the …[Read More]

NP Interviews: Davide Faranda (CNRS) on the topic “global warming and extreme events in Europe”

and August 30, 2022
NP Interviews: Davide Faranda (CNRS) on the topic “global warming and extreme events in Europe”

Davide Faranda is a physicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His main interests are devoted to the construction of a statistical mechanical and dynamical systems framework for the study of atmospheric motions. In particular, his works aim at the characterization of the metastable states of the atmospheric circulation with simple mathematical …[Read More]

When weather extremes meet climate change: how do scientists attribute single events to climate change?

February 25, 2022
When weather extremes meet climate change: how do scientists attribute single events to climate change?

One of the main new points of the IPCC reports AR6 with respect to the previous ones is the increased confidence that global climate change induced by anthropogenic emissions is critically affecting the dynamics of weather extremes. For summer, and specifically over Europe, the AR6 report states that we are already observing prolonged periods of …[Read More]

A new European effort to better understand extreme weather

November 12, 2020
A new European effort to better understand extreme weather

Extreme weather events routinely have detrimental socio-economic impacts around the globe. In fact, weather-related events make up over 90% of natural disasters worldwide [1]. In the new millennium, the frequency of many extreme weather events such as droughts and high temperatures, has systematically exceeded the levels seen in the 1980s and 1990s [1], and anthropogenic …[Read More]

Can we connect the exceptional floods in France and Italy associated with the storm Alex to climate change?

October 14, 2020

The first days of October were marked by an extreme weather event: storm Alex, a cyclone of Atlantic origin, caused massive showers and thunderstorms over Provence, the Alps, Piedmont and Liguria. In these regions, numerous historical records of precipitation were broken causing the flooding of several streams and rivers in which many people lost their …[Read More]