Coordinator

Prof. Michael Ghil, Département Terre Océan Atmosphere de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure

Participants

• France: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, joint institute of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Comissariat ? l’Energie Atomique (CEA)
• France: Societe de Math?matiques Appliqu?es et de Sciences Humaines
• France: Centre International de Recherches sur l’Environnement et le D?veloppement
• Germany: Meteorological Institute, Universit?t Hamburg
• Germany: Interdisciplinary Centre for Dynamics of Complex Systems, Universit?t Potsdam
• UK: King’s College London
• Italy: Physics Department, Universit? degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
• Belgium: Physics Department, Universit? de Li?ge
• Belgium: Institut Royal M?t?orologique de Belgique
• Russia: International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences
• Italy: Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
• Italy: Dipartimento di Fisica Generale, Universit? degli Studi di Torino
• Romania: Institute of Geodynamics of the Romanian Academy
• USA: Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics, University of California at Los Angeles
• France: Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
• Luxembourg: Centre d’Etudes de Populations, de Pauvret? et de Politiques Socio-Economiques

Description

Extreme events include floods, storms, droughts and landslides. Not all such events have natural causes: stock-market crashes, bridge collapses, crime waves and terrorist attacks are of human origin but share many of the same characteristics. A third group of events – possible catastrophic effects of climate change on the economy – have both natural and human origins. Mathematical models of geophysical, climatic or socio-economic systems may have some success in describing their normal state or gradual changes but are not able to predict sudden, extreme events. And, what is more, these events do seem to be more common than conventional statistical analyses would suggest.

The E2-C2 project takes a new look at both natural and socio-economic hazards and the connections between them. The first task will be to improve the statistical theories used to model extreme events. The second line of research will look at extreme climatic events in Europe that arise from the way in which greenhousegas emissions and volcanic eruptions interact with natural climate variability. The E2-C2 team uses atmospheric models to simulate the effects of global warming on the North Atlantic and Western Europe, and historical and geological records from the Campania region of Italy to investigate connections between volcanic eruptions and climatic extremes.

Another task is to look for evidence that extreme events are not random, but that one event may increase the likelihood of another. The team will look at records of strong winds, rogue waves, forest fires, hydrological extremes and landslides. They will attempt to simulate such events and develop methods for forecasting them.

Project's website