DYnamical drivers, predictability and trends of compound CLimate EXtremes (DYCLEX)
2026 – 2031
PI: G. Messori
DYCLEX is an ERC Consolidator Grant focussing on compound climate extremes in the mid-latitudes. Gaining a deep understanding of compound extremes is highly societally relevant. However, it is not easily realised from a scientific standpoint. In this project, we will use an interdisciplinary knowledge base to provide a radically new perspective on the drivers, predictability and trends of compound climate extremes. The analysis framework we will develop is a flexible tool, applicable to a wide range of multivariate extremes in the Earth system and beyond.
Visit the project’s webpage!
Understanding and Predicting Impacts of Climate Extremes under Global Change (CLIMES)
2026 – 2030
Coordinator: G. Messori
The cost of climate-related disasters is steadily increasing, as many climate extremes become more frequent and severe due to anthropogenic climate change. In CLIMES, we aim to advance the understanding of multisectoral impacts of climate extremes and train a cohort of climate impacts experts to enhance European resilience to future climate impacts. We specifically focus on improved climate impact data compilation, innovative risk assessment and the development of climate impact forecasting.
Horizon Europe RIA
Close the LOop: Attributing complex climate disaStERs to climatic and to policy changes (CLOSER)
2026 – 2030
PI: P. Scussolini; co-PIs: CLOSER consortium, including G. Messori
Climate-related disasters are not driven by a single factor: they emerge from the interplay of climatic and non-climatic drivers, often compounding and cascading across systems. In CLOSER, we aim to advance the attribution and
forecasting of hazardous climate events and their impacts, including slow-onset phenomena. To achieve this, we bridge rapid advancements in climate and weather modelling, risk assessment and the socio-economics of disasters with the social sciences of adaptation and policy, from the local to the global scale. This is integrated by a forensic analysis of how policy decisions shape systemic risk and structural inequalities in the face of climate impacts.
Synchronized detrimental climatic events and global food security: roles of climate change and agricultural management practices
2026 – 2029
PI: G. Vico; Co-PI: G. Messori
Detrimental climatic events can substantially reduce crop yields. When several such events affect distant regions in a synchronized fashion, they can reduce yields globally. By combining observed and modelled meteorological and crop yield data with advanced statistical methods, we first identify ecophysiologically informed hydroclimatic indicators explaining extreme yields, locally and globally, and assess the role of synchronized detrimental climatic events. Next, we quantify the historical and future trends of synchronized events associated with global crop yield failures. Finally, we investigate how selected management practices (altered sowing dates, irrigation, crop diversification and migration) may reduce impacts of synchronized events.
FORTE Research Project
Adapting to temperature extremes in pregnant women and infants: past trends and future scenarios (PRoMEThEUS)
2025 – 2027
PI E. Raffetti; Co-PIs: S. Döring, C. Magnusson, G. Messori, A. N. Gallinad, N. Orsini, M. Rusca, L. Zuccolo
Non-optimal or extreme temperatures negatively affect public health and well-being. Pregnant women and infants bear a disproportionate burden in this respect. In this project, we will study the vulnerability to non-optimal and extreme temperatures in pregnant women and infants in Sweden and develop related scenarios of health outcomes from plausible future extreme temperatures in Sweden.
Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes (climes)
2024 – 2028
PI: G. Messori; co-PIs: E. Boyd, J. Nivre, E. Raffetti
Climate extremes have multifarious socio-economic impacts. This new Center of Excellence commits to building a new interdisciplinary research field bridging the physical, medical, social and engineering sciences, providing training opportunities and supporting societal response to climate extremes. The centre focuses on three overarching themes: improving databases of impacts of climate extremes; using these to better understand the physical and societal interplays determining the impacts of an extreme; and building policy-actionable scenarios of impacts of future extremes.
Horizon Europe RIA
Uncertainty-aware quantification of climate tipping potential and climatic, ecological and socioeconomic impacts (ClimTip)
2024 – 2027
PI: N. Boers; co-PIs: ClimTip consortium, including G. Messori
ClimTip will substantially advance the process understanding of possible Earth system Tipping Elements (TEs). It will provide the methodological framework for
characterising and constraining potential TEs, for identifying unknown tipping potential from observations and models, and for quantifying resilience and changes thereof in climate and ecosystems, including early-warning of forthcoming transitions. ClimTip will thus deliver a comprehensive and precise knowledge basis for tipping-aware risk assessment and adaptation and mitigation strategies.
A state-of-the-art impacts database of European climate extremes
2023 – 2026
PI: G. Messori; co-PIs: J. Nivre, M. M. de Brito
Mitigating the impacts of extreme climate events requires understanding how impacts link to climatic drivers. However, existing freely-available climate hazard impact databases are often designed for rapid reporting and have limitations in terms of completeness and accuracy. In this project, we seek to overcome this gap by producing a holistic European multi-sector impacts database of climate extremes, from mining of online text sources.
FORMAS Research Project
Adapting to temperature extremes in a changing climate: Past trends and future scenarios (ADATES)
2023 – 2026
PI: E. Raffetti; co-PIs: J. Ballester, G. di Baldassarre, G. Messori, J. Möller, I. Pechlivanidis
Temperature extremes negatively affect public health and well-being. These detrimental impacts are unevenly distributed, and are projected to increase under future climate change. Taking Sweden as a case-in-point, we aim to address the following questions: (1) which groups are most vulnerable to non-optimal and extreme temperatures? (2) what is the interplay between environmental drivers, societal processes, adaptation strategies and the resulting health impacts?and (3) how can adaptation strategies mitigate the health impacts of plausible future temperatures? Leveraging available climate projections, we will also develop scenarios of health impacts of future temperatures incorporating different adaptation strategies.
Dynamic Adaptation to Temporally compound hydroclimate Extremes: supporting a sustainable transformation under global changes (DATE)
2023 – 2027
PI: E. Raffetti; co-PIs: S. Döring, C. Magnusson, M. Mazzoleni, G. Messori, M. Rusca
Temporally compound hydroclimate extremes, such as drought-to-flood and heatwave-drought transitions, pose a formidable challenge to sustainable transformation. This project aims to enhance understanding of temporally compound hydroclimate extremes and identify adaptation actions that promote sustainable transformation. This includes impact data collection, conducting case-studies of (mis-)adaptation following past extremes. building conceptual models of the adaptation processes and and developing scenarios to evaluate public health and societal impacts of future extremes under different development pathways.
Past Grants
Compound Climate Extremes in North America and Europe: from dynamics to predictability (CENÆ; 2021 – 2026), ERC Starting Grant. Visit the project’s website!
PI: G. Messori
european weather Extremes: DrIvers, Predictability and Impacts (EDIPI; 2021 – 2025), Research Executive Agency Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks. Visit the project’s website!
Coordinator: G. Messori.
Impacts of Climate Extremes from Mining of Online Texts (ICE-MOT; 2023 – 2024), European Research Council Proof-of-Concept
PI: G. Messori
Atmospheric Extremes in the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone (2018 – 2023), Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education Initiation Grant
PI for Sweden: G. Messori; PI for South Africa: M. Vichi
Large-Scale Atmospheric Variability driving changes in the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle and Storage (2019 – 2021), Swedish Research Council FORMAS Research Project.
PI: G. Messori; Co-PIs: S. Manzoni and G. Vico
Large-Scale Organisation of Extreme Weather over Europe and North America (2017 – 2020), Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet Starting Grant.
PI: G. Messori
High latitude atmosphere, Sea-ice and ocean Sciences – HighSeaS (2020), South Africa Sweden University Forum Project.
PI: G. Messori; Co-PI: M. Vichi
Atmospheric pathways to improve seasonal predictability of the terrestrial carbon cycle (2017 – 2018), Bolin Centre RA4 Seed Project.
PI: G. Messori; Co-PIs: S. Manzoni and C. Beer
Large-Scale Dynamics of European Weather Extremes (2016 – 2017), MISU Research Fellowhsip.
PI: G. Messori