University of Complutense de Madrid (UCM)- Department of Earth Sciences II

Spain

UCM is the biggest University in Spain, with 6000 teachers, 100000 students and 195 departments. The group participating is mostly based on the Departamento de Física de la Tierra II and has been formally recognised as ‘Climatology and atmospheric analysis and modeling’ (AMAC in the Spanish acronym). The teaching responsibilities include atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric modelling, climatology, atmospheric physics, statistics and fluid mechanics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. During the last five years ten PhD theses have been presented under the direction of the members of the group. The group has research experience based on the following themes: climate variability, data recovery and climate reconstruction, time series analysis, atmospheric pollution modelling, mesoscale systems analysis, climate and pollution impact on health and middle atmosphere dynamics. During the last five years more than fifty research papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals by the members of the group and more than thirty communications have been presented to international meetings. The group has been involved in projects financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the EU Commission, the USA National Science Foundation and the NOAA. AMAC has organised 5 summer courses along the last five years in co-operation with different Spanish universities.

Contribution to MedCLIVAR and available facilities

The AMAC group is currently member of the NCAR International Affiliates program and is contributing to the development of the WACCM (Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model)model. Jointly with the universities of Barcelona, Vigo, Extremadura and Pablo de Olavide, we have established a Center of Climate Diagnostics. Among the most relevant equipment, we can mention:

- Equipment for digitisation of documentary sources.

- Station receiving satelite imaginery from Meteosat-7 and second generation and NOAA polar orbiting satellites.

- Two multiprocessor working stations.

Names of the responsible scientist and of other personnel involved

Ricardo García-Herrera, Emiliano Hernández Martín, Mª Teresa del Teso, Natalia Calvo, Juan Francisco Correoso García, David Barriopedro Cepero, Daniel Paredes Beato, Marco Aurelio Cony and Sara Queralt.

Brief CV of responsible scientist

Ricardo García Herrera, teaches Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Earth Physics II, in the Complutense University in Madrid. He holds a PhD on time series analysis applied to atmospheric variables. Since then, his research interests have been focused on different areas, such as: climate reconstruction and data recovery from documentary sources, with special emphasis in extreme events, such as hurricanes; analysis of regional climatic extremes, with emphasis on the impact on human health; analysis of climate variability. Apart from this, now he is working on atmospheric NH blocking impacts, teleconnections and middle atmosphere dynamics. During this period he has published more than fifty research papers in peer-reviewed journals and currently he is participating in six research projects on climatic, acting as principal researcher in three of them. Dr García Herrera is co-ordinator of the Spanish Network of climate reconstruction from documentary sources (RECLIDO).