Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EDIPI (european weather Extremes: DrIvers, Predictability and Impacts)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2025-02-28
Extreme weather events exact a high socio-economic toll. A robust scientific understanding of extreme weather events is a key first step to reducing their impacts. EDIPI has focussed on advancing our understanding of the dynamics, predictability and impacts of temperature, precipitation (including drought) and surface wind extremes over Europe and the Mediterranean. EDIPI's key scientific objectives are: to enhance the understanding of the physical processes driving European weather extremes in present and future climates; to advance predictive capabilities for weather extremes; and to evaluate impacts of weather extremes under global change. To achieve these objectives, the project has combined climate science, statistical mechanics, dynamical systems theory, risk management, agronomy, epidemiology and more. Examples of enhanced understanding of physical processes include new insights into the genesis of the strongest windstorms and atmospheric rivers in the North Atlantic and a deepened understanding of the atmospheric and ocean-related precursors and dynamics of blocking. Improved prediction of extreme events has been supported, for example, through the study of anomalous configurations of the North Atlantic jet on seasonal scales and the associated surface extremes and an analysis of how quantifying atmospheric persistence can enhance numerical weather forecasts of extreme temperatures in Europe. Examples of evaluation of socio-economic and public health impacts of the extremes include validating innovative heat-health forecasts, developing attributions of heat-related mortality to climate change and laying the grounds for quantitative impact-based drought forecasts.
EDIPI has recruited a cohort of 14 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) enrolled in Ph. D. programmes and trained them to become Weather Extreme Experts.
ESRs have since then taken part in a large number of training activities, both at their home institutions and beyond. Specifically, EDIPI has organised a number of network-wide trainings that have brought all ESRs together in multiple occasions: in Uppsala, Paris, Brussels, Karlsruhe, Nicosia and at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna. Each ESR has further conducted two long working visits (secondments), lasting 2 to 3 months, to another institution within the EDIPI project. This has included visits to private companies, research centres and universities.
The main scientific results of the EDIPI project have covered the dynamics, predictability and impacts of a wide number of different climate extremes affecting Europe. Many of these results have been published in the peer-reviewed literature, while others are at an earlier stage of development. Examples of published results include an analysis of the meteorological predictability of European heatwaves, which looks at how rapidly the atmospheric flow changes over time in the build-up of a heatwave; a study of how we can attribute cyclones affecting Europe to anthropogenic climate change; an analysis of local and remote drivers of European summertime heatwaves; a comparison of meteorologically-derived windstorm impacts to those from a commercial windstorm model; an attribution of recent heat-related mortality in Europe due to climate change; an analysis historical and future changes in the land area affected by co-occurring hot, wet, and dry extremes; and a quantification of how seasonal and sub-seasonal weather extremes affect crop yields across major agricultural regions in Europe.
EDIPI has disseminated these results to the scientific community and the general public through multiple channels. These include social media such as LinkedIn, popular science articles authored by the ESRs, in-person presentations in schools, museums and libraries, and by producing pedagogical material aimed at school students. Dissemination to the private sector has occurred during the ESR secondments and targeted presentations, including during EDIPI training events. Public agencies and policy-makers, at both local and national level, have also been engaged by EDIPI researchers.
The exploitation of results has focussed on direct non-commercial exploitation by EDIPI consortium members, indirect non-commercial exploitation by external actors and commercial exploitation. Examples include the integration of EDIPI results on extreme event attribution to climate change in the development of a rapid attribution initiative, ongoing discussions with an operational forecasting centre on the relevance of EDIPI results for their forecasting products and the use of EDIPI results for the evaluation of a commercial windstorm model.
ESRs have since then taken part in a large number of training activities, both at their home institutions and beyond. Specifically, EDIPI has organised a number of network-wide trainings that have brought all ESRs together in multiple occasions: in Uppsala, Paris, Brussels, Karlsruhe, Nicosia and at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna. Each ESR has further conducted two long working visits (secondments), lasting 2 to 3 months, to another institution within the EDIPI project. This has included visits to private companies, research centres and universities.
The main scientific results of the EDIPI project have covered the dynamics, predictability and impacts of a wide number of different climate extremes affecting Europe. Many of these results have been published in the peer-reviewed literature, while others are at an earlier stage of development. Examples of published results include an analysis of the meteorological predictability of European heatwaves, which looks at how rapidly the atmospheric flow changes over time in the build-up of a heatwave; a study of how we can attribute cyclones affecting Europe to anthropogenic climate change; an analysis of local and remote drivers of European summertime heatwaves; a comparison of meteorologically-derived windstorm impacts to those from a commercial windstorm model; an attribution of recent heat-related mortality in Europe due to climate change; an analysis historical and future changes in the land area affected by co-occurring hot, wet, and dry extremes; and a quantification of how seasonal and sub-seasonal weather extremes affect crop yields across major agricultural regions in Europe.
EDIPI has disseminated these results to the scientific community and the general public through multiple channels. These include social media such as LinkedIn, popular science articles authored by the ESRs, in-person presentations in schools, museums and libraries, and by producing pedagogical material aimed at school students. Dissemination to the private sector has occurred during the ESR secondments and targeted presentations, including during EDIPI training events. Public agencies and policy-makers, at both local and national level, have also been engaged by EDIPI researchers.
The exploitation of results has focussed on direct non-commercial exploitation by EDIPI consortium members, indirect non-commercial exploitation by external actors and commercial exploitation. Examples include the integration of EDIPI results on extreme event attribution to climate change in the development of a rapid attribution initiative, ongoing discussions with an operational forecasting centre on the relevance of EDIPI results for their forecasting products and the use of EDIPI results for the evaluation of a commercial windstorm model.
The EDIPI project has significantly improved our understanding of climate extremes by implementing innovative analysis approaches. Examples of innovations that have been partly or fully achieved include using concepts from statistical mechanics (a branch of physics) to simulate extreme events in climate models at a low computational cost, using dynamical systems theory (a branch of mathematics that describes the behaviour of complex systems) to understand how predictable the atmosphere is during specific extreme events, developing new methods for rapid attribution of extreme events and their impacts to climate change and combining climate data with epidemiological models to better predict and project the public health impacts of temperature extremes.
Specific advances achieved during the project include:
- an improved physical understanding of how the strongest cyclone-induced winds in the North Atlantic, atmospheric rivers and associated wet and windy extremes in Europe occur;
- a statistical framework for the prediction of rare heat waves in a regime of lack of data;
- an improved understanding of the atmospheric and oceanic precursors to the onset and decay of atmospheric blocking, which is an atmospheric feature linked to European temperature extremes;
- a framework to understand how unusual large-scale winds in the upper troposphere (around 10 km from the ground) can lead to surface extremes;
- how the predictability of heatwaves can be used to predict Europe-wide heat-related mortality, supporting heat-health early warning systems;
- the ability to attribute windstorms and heavy precipitation from extratropical cyclones to anthropogenic climate change;
- impact-based drought forecasts for Europe building on the current physical drought forecasts;
- data on historical and future changes in land area affected by co-occurring hot, wet and dry extremes;
- attribution of heat-related mortality in Europe to climate change;
- a risk assessment of the impact of windstorms on infrastructure in Europe under future climates;
- an evaluation of extreme weather indicators to quantify extreme event impacts on crops.
This work has multiple socio-economic and societal implications. These include the direct commercial relevance for the insurance industry of advancements in commercial windstorm models and windstorm risk assessments; the societal value of heat-related mortality forecasts and heat-health early-warning systems; the policy relevance of rapid attribution of both heat-related mortality and major extreme weather events; the economic relevance of identifying robust links between weather events and crop yields and more.
Specific advances achieved during the project include:
- an improved physical understanding of how the strongest cyclone-induced winds in the North Atlantic, atmospheric rivers and associated wet and windy extremes in Europe occur;
- a statistical framework for the prediction of rare heat waves in a regime of lack of data;
- an improved understanding of the atmospheric and oceanic precursors to the onset and decay of atmospheric blocking, which is an atmospheric feature linked to European temperature extremes;
- a framework to understand how unusual large-scale winds in the upper troposphere (around 10 km from the ground) can lead to surface extremes;
- how the predictability of heatwaves can be used to predict Europe-wide heat-related mortality, supporting heat-health early warning systems;
- the ability to attribute windstorms and heavy precipitation from extratropical cyclones to anthropogenic climate change;
- impact-based drought forecasts for Europe building on the current physical drought forecasts;
- data on historical and future changes in land area affected by co-occurring hot, wet and dry extremes;
- attribution of heat-related mortality in Europe to climate change;
- a risk assessment of the impact of windstorms on infrastructure in Europe under future climates;
- an evaluation of extreme weather indicators to quantify extreme event impacts on crops.
This work has multiple socio-economic and societal implications. These include the direct commercial relevance for the insurance industry of advancements in commercial windstorm models and windstorm risk assessments; the societal value of heat-related mortality forecasts and heat-health early-warning systems; the policy relevance of rapid attribution of both heat-related mortality and major extreme weather events; the economic relevance of identifying robust links between weather events and crop yields and more.