CAFE · Climate Advanced Forecasting of sub-seasonal Extremes

Climate extremes such as heat waves or tropical storms have huge social and economic impact. The forecasting of such extreme events at the sub-seasonal time scale (from 10 days to 3 months) is challenging. Since the atmosphere and the ocean are coupled systems of enormous complexity, in order to advance sub-seasonal predictability of extreme events, it is crucial to train a new kind of interdisciplinary top-level researchers. CAFE research is structured in three WP: Atmospheric and oceanic processes, Extreme events and Tools for predictability, and brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists. Objectives: Study of the relation between RWPs and the large scale environment, and the resulting limit of predictability; Statistical characterization of MJO events, dependence on climatic factors, and simple modelling to evaluate predictability; Development of diagnosis tools for identification and tracking of the MJO, blocking, waves and oceanic structures; Analysis of climatic changes in weather patterns and their relation with new climatic phenomena and extreme events in Europe; Estimation of probabilities for severe damages due to extreme events associated to ENSO; Validation of the hypothesis of cascades of extreme events and effects of a non-stationary climate; Estimation of exceedance probabilities for intensity of severe atmospheric events, including windstorms and hurricanes; Assessment of the response of extreme weather events for different levels of stabilized global warming and comparison with their response to internal modes of climate variability; Development of a procedure to improve the predictability of the onset of monsoon; Advanced statistical analysis of dynamic associations between SSS and extreme precipitation events; Study of predictability of large-scale atmospheric flow patterns over the Mediterranean connected to extreme weather; Systematic quantification of the predictability potential of a SWG of analogues of atmospheric circulation.