Project Details
Projekt
ADVancing the Investigation of Compound Events via large ensemble climate model simulations (ADVICE)
Applicant
Emanuele Bevacqua, Ph.D.
Subject Area
Atmospheric Science
Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 524780515
Climate and weather impacts typically result from compound events (CEs), which are multivariate combinations of climatic drivers and/or hazards. For example, a concurrent hot and dry summer can lead to vegetation damages with impacts that often exceed those from heatwaves and droughts in isolation. Simultaneous wildfires over multiple European countries may overload shared response resources such as firefighting planes, therefore resulting in amplified damages. In recent years, recognising that a univariate perspective on hazards may severely underestimate climate risks and lead to maladaptation, a growing body of scientific literature on CEs has emerged. However, our understanding of CEs, including quantification of their frequencies and how they will change in the future, is still limited. Research on CEs is challenged by the limited sample size of observations and routinely-used climate model outputs, which often does not allow for identifying and studying the rare multivariate combinations of drivers that constitute CEs. For example, based on data with a small sample size, a user may conclude that CEs are rare in locations where, instead, they are very frequent. In this context, the main aim of ADVICE is to exploit the full potential of novel Single Model Initial-condition Large Ensembles (SMILEs), which provide hundreds to thousands of years of data of present and future climates, to advance our understanding of CEs. ADVICE builds on previous pioneering contributions to research on CEs by the PI. Two PhD students will study (i) simultaneous fire weather over European countries and (ii) multi-year droughts that may enhance ecosystem impacts, while a PDR and the PI will consider several other CE types. ADVICE will quantify CE frequencies and associated uncertainties, thus providing information on hotspot regions at risk of CEs in present and future climates. It will study worst-case CEs, which may cause extreme socio-economic impacts. Adequately communicating uncertainties in projections is essential to avoid misleading risk assessments; therefore, ADVICE will develop distinct plausible future climate evolutions that include worst-case climate storylines. Methods will be explored for reducing uncertainties in CE projections via emergent constraints. Overall, the focus on the different CE types will allow for distilling key advantages of SMILEs for studying CEs, as well as information on the skill of climate models in representing CEs, thus providing relevant information to climate scientists. Given the need to incorporate multivariate perspectives in risk assessments, the results of ADVICE will provide feedback to risk modellers, thereby ultimately supporting the development of adaptation to climate change.
DFG Programme
Independent Junior Research Groups
International Connection
Italy, Switzerland, USA
