Joint ICTP-SISSA ESP SEMINAR Monday, 15 February, 14:30

[Earth System Physics Section]

Joint ICTP-SISSA
EARTH SYSTEM PHYSICS SEMINAR
Monday, 15 February, 14:30 hrs
Central area, 2nd floor, ex-SISSA bldg.

Valerio LUCARINI
University of Hamburg, Germany
University of Reading, UK

RESPONSE AND FLUCTUATIONS IN GEOPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS
The climate is a complex, chaotic, non-equilibrium system featuring a 
limited horizon of predictability, variability on a vast range of 
temporal and spatial scales, instabilities resulting into energy 
transformations, and mixing and dissipative processes resulting into 
entropy production. Despite great progresses, we still do not have a 
complete theory of climate dynamics able to encompass instabilities, 
equilibration processes, and response to changing parameters of the 
system.  We will outline some possible applications of the response 
theory developed by Ruelle for non-equilibrium statistical mechanical 
systems, showing how it allows for setting on firm ground and on a 
coherent framework concepts like climate sensitivity, climate response, 
and climate tipping points. We will show results for comprehensive 
global climate models. The results are promising in terms of suggesting 
new ways for approaching the problem of climate change prediction and 
for using more efficiently the enormous amounts of data produced by 
modeling groups around the world.

V. Lucarini, R. Blender, C. Herbert, F. Ragone, S. Pascale, J. Wouters, 
Mathematical and Physical Ideas for Climate Science, Reviews of 
Geophysics 52, 809-859 (2014)