Combined cold and wind drought winters
Winter cold spells in Europe can be accompanied by anomalously weak winds. Usually, the reason is a so-called “blocked” atmospheric circulation, leading to advection of cold air downstream and a weaker than normal warming westerly flow. This creates a situation where energy demand is high, but power production from renewables is low, leading to higher risk of energy shortfall (Figure 1). With the transition towards more renewable energies in Europe, the energy sector will also become more weather-dependent, making it necessary to understand potential changes in the frequency and intensity of combined cold/wind drought winters.
Cold Outbreak in Europe in spring 2021
The spring of 2021 showed anomalously low temperatures across large areas of Europe (see Figure 1). These extreme temperatures likely contributed to impacts in different sectors (energy, health, agriculture). In particular, several frost nights in early April in France caused damage to the regional wine industry as the cold temperatures occurred after anomalously warm temperatures in March, thus, right in the sensitive phase after bud-burst.
Pacific North American heatwave 2021
During the last days of July 2021 a region in the Northwestern US and southwestern Canada experienced temperatures that have never been previously observed in this region, with records broken in many places by several degrees (Philip et al. 2021). A new all-time Canadian temperature record of 49.6°C was set in the town of Lytton, British Columbia. The same town was strongly affected and partly destroyed by one of the severe wildfires that occurred during and after the heatwave. The Pacific Northwest heatwave further contributed to a sharp increase in heat-related excess mortality. The Pacific Northwest heat wave is one of a series of record-shattering heat extremes that, based on the previous observational record, may have been deemed impossible.
Medicane Apollo
Medicane Apollo (named by a consortium of European meteorological services) formed on October 28th in the Jonian sea, offshore Sicily, from a low pressure disturbance which was very active in the days previous the formation of the Medicane. This low pressure system was isolated near the Balearic islands around 22nd of October and then moved on the Central Mediterranean sea producing self-regenerating thunderstorms in the area of Catania on the 24th of October.
EARLY 2022 HEAT WAVES IN EUROPE AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The summer of 2022 was pounded by a series of heat waves in Europe. The first, an outstanding early heat wave, took place in mid-June 2022 across Europe, mostly hitting Spain, France, but also other parts of Europe. The early character of the heat, in a crucial season for agriculture and ecosystems, is likely to have induced specific impacts on health and agriculture, which will need to be assessed. During the XAIDA Summer School in Trieste, students have studied the relation of this heatwave to climate change.
JOB OFFER: POSTDOCTORAL OPPORTUNITY AT ICTP
Join the XAIDA Team at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Institute (ICTP) in Trieste Italy as a postdoc in high resolution regional climate modelling, coupled regional earth system modelling, hydroclimate modelling and machine learning algorithm under the supervision of Dr. Erika Coppola.
WINTER DROUGHT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Since October 2021 and until mid march 2022, a severe drought has gripped the Western Mediterranean area, putting harvests from rain-fed crops potentially at risk. Winter is a crucial season for water resources in this region. What is the current state of our knowledge?
SUMMER SCHOOL: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR DETECTION AND ATTRIBUTION OF CLIMATE EXTREMES
Located in ICTP, Trieste, Italy, the XAIDA’s Summer School took place from 20 June to 2 July 2022. This article introduces the lectures, hackathons, workshops and makes an analysis of the organisation, attendees and feedback from the participants.
JOB OFFER: 3 YEARS RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
Join the XAIDA Team at the Institute of Data Science of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), to work in Development of causal inference methods in the field causal Inference and machine learning under the supervision of Dr. Jakob Runge.
JOB OFFER: POST-DOCTORAL POSITION
Join the XAIDA Team at LSCE (CNRS), Paris region, to work in Attribution of Tropical Cyclones to climate Change via Statistical Learning under the supervision of Davide Faranda, Mathieu Vrac and Sebastien Fromang.
