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Satellite image of a tornado

Climate applications

Climate extremes in the present day and in future decades can have severe implications, with the poorest members of societies being often the most vulnerable. The ESP group uses dynamical and statistical modelling techniques to assess the socio-economic impacts of climate
variability and change, for example on energy, water and health. As with the climate models, the dynamical impact models CHYM and VECTRI are made available to the wider scientific community through regular workshops and training events.

ACCLIMATISE (Attribution of a Changing CLIMate in the AssessmenT of malaria Intervention Strategy Efficiency)

Recent significant investments in malaria interventions have reduced malaria burden. Contemporaneously, the climate has continued to warm with associated changes in rainfall and weather extremes, which compound year to year and decadal climate variability. Together these impact malaria transmission through the climate sensitivity of the parasite and its mosquito vector. Hence, climate change can either enhance or offset the impact of malaria interventions. Conversely, interventions can be optimised to mitigate the effects of climate, for instance to prevent outbreaks at higher altitudes. Ignoring the confounding effects of climate can result in the impact of interventions being over- or under-estimated. Equally, neglecting the impact of interventions would render attribution of malaria outbreaks to anthropogenic climate inaccurate. 

Funded by a major grant from Wellcome, ACCLIMATISE combines modelling and observations to differentiate the climate signal from that of interventions and other environmental and socioeconomic changes, so that a cost-benefit analysis can fairly assess the efficiency of interventions. We use counterfactual simulations to attribute anthropogenic climate change in malaria trends in endemic settings, as well as extremes in highland areas and the monsoon fringe with a range of intervention scenarios. An AI-emulator will be co-designed with stakeholders to assess efficient intervention strategies in the present and near future to 2050.

Read an ICTP news article about the project.

Earth System Model

Earth System Modelling

Earth system models attempt to represent the key processes that determine the climate of our planet, such as the atmospheric and ocean circulations, aerosols and atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, the cryosphere, and land surface processes. The research of the group uses model tools such as the latest generation of the regional climate model REGCM and intermediate complexity global model SPEEDY to understand our climate, its natural variability and its response to anthropogenic forcings.

Earth model

Solid Earth Geophysics

The researchers use seismology, space geodesy, tectonics and numerical experiments to understand the following topics: Mechanics of earthquakes and faulting, Structure and rheology of the lithosphere in active earthquake and volcanic regions, Physics of transient deformation, and Active tectonics and earthquake hazard.