17h of November 2022: Climate Change Overheating in the MENA Region: Lessons and Perspectives from Recent Research – Associate Professor Panos Hadjinicolaou
Abstract
The CELSIUS project (funded by the grant EXCELLENCE/1216/0039 of the Research and Innovation Foundation) provided new climate change projections for Middle East/North Africa, including the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus, at improved spatial precision and with emphasis on temperature extremes and the warming over urban areas. The WRF model was used as a regional climate model to dynamically downscale to 24 km, for the recent past and the mid-21st century, climate fields from the CIMP5 global climate models forced by the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 IPCC emissions scenarios (specifically, for 2, 3 and 4 degrees Celsius global warming levels). Additional downscaling was applied to account to some extent for the urban heat island effect. The modelled urban heating was analysed for selected cities around the region (including Nicosia and Limassol for Cyprus) and especially in the context of humid heat conditions approaching levels that are dangerous and intolerable for humans based on wet-bulb temperatures (an indicator of both warm and humid conditions) of 30 and 35 degrees Celsius, respectively.
About the Speaker
Panos Hadjinicolaou is an Associate Professor at the Climate and Atmosphere Research Centre (CARE-C) of The Cyprus Institute. He holds a BSc in Physics from University of Athens (1993), an MSc in Atmospheric Sciences from University of East Anglia (1994), and a PhD in Atmospheric Modelling from University of Cambridge (2002). Panos served previously as: Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge (2002-2005); Research Associate at the University of Athens (2005-2006); Assistant Professor at Frederick University (2006-2008); Associate Research Scientist at The Cyprus Institute (2008-2015). He has contributed to EU projects in the UK on global atmospheric chemistry modelling, and his work on dynamically-induced stratospheric ozone trends has appeared in three World Meteorological Organization Οzone Depletion Assessments. Subsequently, in Greece and Cyprus, he has coordinated and carried out modelling work in national and international research projects on regional climate modelling and extremes. He has published more than 50 papers with a Web of Science h-index of 25. His research interests are: dynamical downscaling of past, present and future climate; climate change extremes and impacts, stratospheric ozone depletion; interactions of atmospheric circulation and composition. He is Point of Contact of the MENA-CORDEX programme.
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JELmr8JF2Po
