The My Climate Risk (MCR) Education Working Group conducted two webinars on "Climate and Colonialism" earlier this month. Here is a detailed highlight of the discussions.

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The Walker Institute is organizing this side event at the Adaptation Futures 2023 conference in Montreal, Canada. The event will explore ways to bridge science and socio-political action, addressing multiple risks while responding to local adaptation needs. 

Can We Do Better? Climate Science and Colonialism - MCR Education Working Group Series on Climate and Colonialism

Don't miss our webinar on "Leveraging Climate Research and Modeling for Action in the Indo-Pacific region." Hosted by MCR IITM MCR Hub, this event will focus on the importance of climate research and modeling in driving actionable insights for the Indo-Pacific region. Learn how research can inform climate-related decisions and actions.

To register, click here. 

We invite you to the "Ecological Tipping Points and Resilience" webinar, part of the Tipping Points Discussion Series hosted by Safe Landing Climates. This session will explore the critical topic of ecological tipping points, addressing when they may occur and when they may not. Gain insights into the resilience of ecosystems in the face of environmental challenges. 

Register here to attend the webinar.  

Join us for an engaging webinar "Coproducción de conocimientos hidroclimáticos: experiencias desde la práctica" (Experiences of co-production of hydroclimatic knowledge and participatory science), hosted by the My Climate Risk Argentina hub. The webinar will be in Spanish, with simultaneous English translation. 

To register, click here. 

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the record warming trends that have been observed globally in recent months. This includes an observed basin-wide warming of the ocean and an increase in marine heatwaves. Marine heatwaves occur when ocean temperatures in a given region are well above average for an extended period of time. Warmer ocean temperatures impact the marine environment and associated ecosystems, and ocean heat can also fuel developing tropical cyclones. Leading ocean scientists have made a collective assessment of recent global trends and report on what we may expect in the future. 

A new webinar series hosted by the CLIVAR-GEWEX Monsoons Panel, on global and regional monsoons, will begin at 07:00 UTC on 13 September 2023.  The first webinar in this series will explore the global monsoon and will feature Dr Bin Wang (University of Hawaii) and Dr Annalisa Cherchi (National Research Council, Institute of the Atmospheric Science and Climate, Bologna). Dr Suryachandra Rao Anguluri (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology) will chair this webinar.     

Check out the Monsoons Panel Webinar Series page to register.  

The new Digital Earths Lighthouse Activity webinar series will start on 12 September 2023 at 15:00 UTC with a talk by Peter Caldwell (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA) on the “Successes and Challenges for the Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model”.

Check the Digital Earths webinar series page to register for this event.

Early bird registration for the WCRP Open Science Conference (23-27 October 2023) has been extended to 25 July 2023. This will be the final date for participants to register at a reduced rate for the standard conference registration. Pre-registration for side events with a limited number of participants is also open now.

The WCRP Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change Lighthouse Activity invites you to join the 5^th webinar of the series that will provide a discussion forum on topics focused on predicting and explaining a range of different climate phenomena and events, while supporting the further development of a scientific agenda. This fifth webinar will focus on recent changes and the human influence on the Earth Energy Imbalance.

SPEAKERS: 

• Karina von Schuckmann (Mercator Ocean, France): Heat stored in the Earth system 1960–2020: where does the energy go?
• Norman Loeb (NASA, USA): Recent Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance
• Shiv Priyam Raghuraman (NCAR, USA): Clear evidence of human influence on Earth's energy imbalance

The event will take place on Wednesday 19^th July 2023, from 14:00hs to 15:30hs UTC.

Registrations are free and can be done via https://EPESC-webinar-Earth-Energy-Imbalance.eventbrite.co.uk

The Technical Report published by the Joint Research Center (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service, provides evidence-based scientific support showing the impacts of the emerging drought that has been visible in Europe during the winter and spring months. Based on the observation of Combined Drought Indicators (CDI). These indicators combine meteorological, hydrological and biophysical variables captured by satellites as well as the temporal and spatial scales of the indicator and the geographical area where they occur, attempting to explain the drought conditions associated with impacts on available water sources.

The CDI's provide an effective comparison to assess how the evolution of drought occurs over a given period of several years. The Global Drought Observatory in Europe published in March 2023, compares how the end of the winter season has been this year and the two previous years. The comparative shows that in the late winter months in 2021 the CDI's maintained normal conditions. However, in 2022 the indicators showed 'warming conditions' mainly in the southern regions of Europe. In contrast, in 2023, the indicators show that drought is affecting Central and Western parts of Europe. The three countries that have triggered the most warnings about the strongest impacts of drought on their water resources, agriculture and energy production are Italy, France and Spain. Significant evidence of drought has also been seen at the end of the winter season and in many cases has continued to trend through the spring months in Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, most of the Mediterranean islands, Black Sea regions such as Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) shows the anomalies produced by the lack of precipitation compared to the usual average. In this case the SPI analyses the cumulative records over a 12-month period. The conclusion is that many parts of Europe have been accumulating negative or visibly below-average precipitation records over the last year. The year 2023 has started with anomalies in most of France, Germany, northern Italy, northern Poland and the Black Sea coast. The Temperature indicator shows the prolonged above-average temperatures occurring during the different seasons, compared to pre-industrial parameters. Between the period of late 2022 and early 2023, many regions of Europe have experienced high mid-winter temperatures, with Central Europe and eastern Scandinavia experiencing temperatures 3 to 6 °C above average. The UK, on the other hand, has experienced one of the warmest and driest winters in its history.

The most effective way to quantify the assessment of snow water resources is through the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE). It represents the amount of water stored at the top of the mountains. Comparing 2022-2023 with respect to the previous decade of 2011-2021, there have been periods during the winter season where only one third of the usual SWE was available. The Soil Moisture Index (SMI) together with the Total Water Storage (TWS) is used to determine long-term hydrological drought conditions. It also often serves as a proxy for the amount of groundwater available. Low precipitation records and above average warm temperatures show low soil moisture indicators especially in Western Europe in countries such as Spain, France, the UK, Italy, among others. Satellite records of vegetation stress in Europe are studying the loss and availability of Vegetation Biomass. Southern Spain is particularly vulnerable and may be at increased risk of drought and vegetation loss during the summer months, after having experienced an extremely hot April, reaching temperatures of 38°C.

The evolution of river flow is another important indicator of the progress of the drought. As rivers are one of the most important water sources, it is determined by the River Flow Index (SLI). There are some areas in Europe, such as the Rhone and Po basins, where critical river flow values are expected to be reached by 2023. The Global Drought Observatory Analytical Report in early March reflected extremely warm conditions across Europe which have continued to record anomalies in CDI (Lack of precipitation and warmer-than-average temperatures) in central and southern regions during May 2023. Close monitoring is required to understand the impacts expected for the coming growing season.

Bibliography. 

Global Drought Observatory Analytical Report. Toreti, A., Bavera, D., Acosta Navarro, J., Arias-Muñoz, C., Avanzi, F., Marinho Ferreira Barbosa, P., De Jager, A., Di Ciollo, C., Ferraris, L., Fioravanti, G., Gabellani, S., Grimaldi, S., Hrast Essenfelder, A., Isabellon, M., Jonas, T., Maetens, W., Magni, D., Masante, D., Mazzeschi, M., Mccormick, N., Meroni, M., Rossi, L., Salamon, P. and Spinoni, J., Drought in Europe March 2023, EUR 31448 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, ISBN 978-92-68-01068-6, doi:10.2760/998985, JRC133025.