Institute of Biometeorology - National Research Council of Italy (IBIMET – CNR)

Italy

IBIMET is engaged in a wide spectrum of research activities in basic and applied meteorology, climatology, ecosystem analysis, socio-economic development in agriculture and forestry at different scales and over several distinct geographical areas. Since west Africa is a special study area, IBIMET is participating to cooperation projects, technology transfer, training programmes and basic research. Since the eighties, IBIMET has been operating in West Africa on issues regarding agro-meteorology (WMO Pilot projects), food security (CLIMAG-WA/EU; PRESAO/CILSS), early warning systems (AP3A/WMO/AGRHYMET; Sahel Resources) and analysis of vulnerability to combat desertification (DISMED/UNCCD), evaluation and monitoring of natural resources and land reclamation assessment (PDRADM/FAO; PEICRE-PAFAGE/Italian Cooperation); IBIMET is partner of WFP, FEWS, FAO, WMO and CILSS for the creation of shared system of vulnerability analysis for Sahel, and it is a recognized Regional Meteorological Training Centre of WMO for the VI Region. In the field of atmospheric dynamics and climatology IBIMET is collaborating with several national Institutions and Universities (ASI Projects; Antarctic Project; CLIMAGRI; Arno river basin authority; Castelporziano project), and with Universities in North America (NSF Projects with Colorado State University/Duke University/NOAA-CIRES/NRL). The Institute is contributing to the EU-IP AMMA covering several aspects: Inter-annual variability of African Monsoon; Interaction between the large-scale flow and WAM weather systems; mesoscale perturbations induced by surface fluxes. Research activities carried out in the framework of “Climate change and agriculture” project, and of “Impact of climate variability on a coastal Mediterranean ecosystem: the Castelporziano natural area” Project and of the AMMA Project are indeed of interest for MedCLIVAR.

Contribution to MedCLIVAR and Available facilities

IBIMET bring to MedCLIVAR the expertise developed during past and ongoing activities on basic research in atmospheric dynamics and climate, contributing to the study of the relations between climate variability in the Mediterranean region and the global tropical oceans. The main purpose of the research is to study the connections/teleconnections between the summer climate in the Mediterranean and the African Monsoon. A Regional Model will be used for simulations on different time-space scales on a domain including Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and extending south to Guinea Gulf. The effects of the SST variability in the Gulf of Guinea on the Mediterranean climate variability will be assessed. On the other hand, the influence of variability of Mediterranean SST on the climate variability of the North African Region will be studied. Since the phenomena we intend to study are embedded in the large scale circulation and in particular in the Hadley cell circulation, therefore a mathematical/theoretical model of the development and evolution of Hadley cell will be elaborated. The principal instruments of investigation available are: NCEP-NCAR and ERA40 reanalysis databases; historical time series of atmospheric parameters in Southern Europe, and in Italy in particular (station data for Italy will be available for the period 1950-2005); a Regional numerical model; scenarios for future climate produced by the the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma); gridded precipitation provided by the GPCP for a comparison with the CCCma scenario. In addition to the numerical model, advanced mathematical models, and statistical software are available.

Names of the responsible scientist and of other personnel involved:

Marina Baldi (responsible scientist)

Gianni Dalu, Massimiliano Pasqui, Lorenzo Genesio, Francesco Cesarone, Marco Gaetani

CV of Responsible Scientist:

Marina Baldi, Doctor in Physics from Univ of Rome, Scientist at CNR since 1988, is responsible of the Climate Dynamics research group of IBIMET in Rome with a wide experience in atmospheric (mesoscale) dynamics, and in the climate dynamics and variability of the Mediterranean Region. Invited visiting scientist at Colorado State Univ in USA, Kyushu Univ in Japan, Univ of British Columbia in Canada, IIASA in Austria, Imperial College in London-UK. She is participating at several National, European projects as well as NSF-U.S.A. projects. She is lecturer of meteorology and climatology at Univ of Rome, Florence, Viterbo.