Seminar “Earth system ensemble forecasting” and opening of “From Earth to Space” exhibition
Seminar “Earth system ensemble forecasting: managing climate impacts via increased preparedness”
The seminar is a public event proposed in the framework of the Second level specializing Master’s programme in “Climate Change: adaptation and mitigation solutions”
Abstract: Climate change is increasing the pressure and impact on our society, particularly during severe meteorological events (e.g. intense storms and heatwaves) and large-scale environmental disturbances (e.g. fires and flooding), even when these events are happening far away from our doorsteps, given we live in a connected world (e.g. food prices, migratory fluxes, local economic instabilities are affected by these events often with global consequences).
Tapping into the latest science and technological advances global forecasting has sizeably evolved from tradition numerical weather prediction focusing on atmospheric processes with the first supercomputers in the 1950s. Nowadays high performance computing and data centres enable to process and assimilate a large amount of Earth Observations (e.g. from satellites, airplanes, and ground-bases instruments) studying and monitoring all the building blocks of our Earth system, and accounting for the processes in the hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and not least the human influence on the environment.
The precision of the forecasts get characterised using the ensemble techniques, which permits to establish the probabilities of occurrence of a given meteorological or environmental extremes several days ahead and add to preparedness for managing climate-change impacts. In this seminar the advances brought by Earth observations data and ensemble forecasting applied to the Earth system will be reviewed by means of significant examples and illustrations.
Speaker: Gianpaolo Balsamo, PhD, HDR
Principal scientist at the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Dr. Balsamo leads research and development on coupled processes with focus on the Earth surface component of the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) used in Weather Prediction and Climate reanalyses. He is involved in European research projects and contributes to Copernicus Earth Observations programme. Author of several publications in Meteorology, Hydrology, Earth System Science and Climate, he serves the science community via projects' reviews (for the European Research Council and several National Research Councils) and active participation to scientific panels (e.g. for the European Commission, ESA, EUMETSAT, WMO).
At the end of the seminar (6.30 p.m.)
Official opening of the temporary exhibition “From Earth to Space: observing and measuring our Planet”, set in cooperation with the Libraries and Museum Area of Politecnico di Torino (19 February – 30 April 2020)
Brief introduction in Classroom 10, followed by a guided visit with representatives of the Libraries and Museum Area, the Department DIATI and Dr. Mario Gomarasca, AIT & CNR-IREA.
Participation is free, registration recommended: http://bit.ly/seminar19feb2020
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