The hydro-climate response to climate change in Mediterranean climates: a three timescales problem
| When |
Sep 03, 2019
from 10:45 to 11:45 |
|---|---|
| Where | Room André Collet (M6) |
| Attendees |
Giuseppe Zappa |
| Add event to calendar |
vCal
iCal
|
Understanding how regional climate will respond to climate change remains an outstanding challenge for climate science. Particular concern regards the hydro-climate response of Mediterranean climates, so-called because characterised by wet winters opposed to dry and hot summers — most of which are robustly projected to become drier in the future projections. In this talk, the dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms contributing to these regional hydro—climate changes will be analysed by inspecting the timescales in the climate response to an increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations. It will be shown how the commonly adopted partition into a rapid adjustment followed by a slower response with surface warming is unable to explain the time evolution of the precipitation response in these regions. Hence, a three timescale framework that accounts for the time evolution in the sea surface temperature (SST) warming patterns will be introduced and shown to shed new insights onto the processes controlling the response. In particular, these results will show how the SST warming patterns, via their influence on the shift of mid-latitude jets, are critical to determine the extent that Mediterranean climates will become drier with climate change.