Programma: PRIN
Responsabile scientifico per il dipartimento: Salvatore Pascale
Struttura principale: DIFA
Data inizio e data fine: dal 28/09/2023 al 28/09/2025
ENCIRCLE: cicloni e precipitazioni estreme in Italia
Il progetto ENCIRCLE analizza gli impatti del cambiamento climatico su cicloni e piogge estreme in Italia, integrando modelli climatici e deep learning per supportare politiche di adattamento efficaci.
ENCIRCLE: Cyclones and Extreme Rainfall in Italy
ENCIRCLE studies climate change impacts on cyclones and extreme precipitation in Italy, combining climate models and deep learning to support effective adaptation policies.
Abstract
The overarching objective of ENCIRCLE is to provide credible, understandable and useful information of how climate change affects the frequency, intensity and duration of precipitation extremes driven by extratropical and Mediterranean cyclones in Italy. We identify the lack of high-resolution multi-member climate simulations as the key limit in evaluating changes in these events, and overcome it by developing a novel statistical-dynamical framework to assess risk that exploits - in an unprecedented way - the respective strengths of available high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs) and initial condition single-model large ensembles (SMILEs). The former provide a better representation of regional processes, while the latter have a sufficient number of ensemble members to isolate the signal of climate change from internal climate variability. RCMs and SMILEs are usually analysed by different communities, but ENCIRCLE aims to demonstrate that a substantial advancement in the assessment of regional hydroclimatic hazards can be obtained via a coordinated analysis. Expected results: ENCIRCLE will extract complementary climate information from the SMILES and from RCMs via a deep learning approach that learns from observations the most favourable circulation patterns that trigger regional precipitation extremes. ENCIRCLE results will advance current knowledge on the impact of climate change on the frequency of cyclones and on the magnitude of the associated precipitation extremes in Italy, and thus clarify the role of climate change in recent extreme precipitation events. The role of physical processes, such as the shifts of mid-latitude jets and the warming of the Mediterranean sea, as a source of uncertainty in the projections will be made transparent, and summarised in the form of interpretable storylines of regional climate change. This will provide a range of best and worst-case scenarios to support the planning and development of adaptation policies.