Climate Variability and Changes

Aim: Understanding the past, current and future global changes in the Earth system and the fundamental physical and dynamical processes affecting climate variability and trends at different spatial and temporal scales. This will be done through reconstructions of historical time series and development and use of numerical simulations with global and regional climate models, to study the climate variability from decadal to centennial timescales and to assess the role of internal and forced climate variability over the last century and in future projections under different emission scenarios.

Research topics:

  • Reconstructions of historical climate
  • Historical simulations and future projections with global (EC-Earth) and regional climate models
  • Study of the fundamental processes in the climate systems
  • Dynamical and statistical/stochastic downscaling of climate simulations
  • Radiative processes and mechanisms of climate variability
  • Transport processes and physical-chemical interactions that influence the climate system and its changes
  • Study of the tropical-extratropical teleconnections and their variability as sources of seasonal to decadal predictability.

 

aaa
Maximum skill (Brier skill score for upper tercile t2m forecasting) attainable using 1-month lead Summer (JJA) seasonal forecasts. It is shown significant skill over Mediterranean and Italy (>0.4).

Reference:

Alessandri, A., M. De Felice, F. Catalano, J-Y. Lee, B. Wang, D-Y. Lee, J-H. Yoo, A. Weisenheimer, 2018: Grand European and Asian-Pacific multi-model seasonal forecasts: maximization of skill and of potential economical value to end-users, Clim. Dyn., 50 (7-8), 2719-2738 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3766-y