Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

A few reasons making the June 2022 French Heatwave too hot & too soon

Davide Faranda June 17, 2022

Picture (by Chris Walts): original way to stay cool during hot days in Paris.

Too hot, Too soon: the thermometer has reached unprecedented temperature for a month of June in France, with the 40°C mark crossed by Friday June 17 in part of France. The IPCC AR6 report now clearly states that the probability of heatwave events such as this one has increased by a factor 3 to 5 in the present climate with respect to a counterfactual world not affected by anthropogenic greenhouse ...[Read More]

ClimarisQ: A game on the complexity of the climate systems and the extreme events

Davide Faranda May 26, 2022

ClimarisQ is a smartphone/web game from a scientific mediation project that highlights the complexity of the climate system and the urgency of collective action to limit climate change. It is available in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Italian. It is an app-game where players must make decisions to limit the frequency and impacts of extreme climate events and their impacts on human s ...[Read More]

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

Davide Faranda February 25, 2022

Tropical Cyclone Batsirai landfalled in Madagascar on February 5-6 2022, causing extended floding, visible on February 10 (right) when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over. In this comparison of false-color imagery, which uses MODIS bands 7-2-1, areas flooded with sediment-laden water appear blue. The same area is shown on January 30, between recent storms (left panel). Credits: NASA Earth Observatory.

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 extremely warm conditions with increased droughts bo ...[Read More]

A new European effort to better understand extreme weather

Gabriele Messori November 12, 2020

Feature Image: Screenshot of the european weather Extremes: DrIvers, Predictability and Impacts (EDIPI) homepage. Background Image Credits: Copernicus Sentinel data, processed by ESA.

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 climate change may further ...[Read More]