The response of intense Mediterranean cyclones to climate change

Intense Mediterranean cyclones (IMC) are weather systems that have a high potential for destruction in the densely populated coastal areas around the Mediterranean sea and they cause high risk situations, such as flash floods and large-scale floods with significant impacts on human life and built environment. The aim of the study is to analyse and attribute future changes in IMC under different future forcings and to assess the effect of horizontal model resolution by comparing hydrostatic- versus convection-permitting models. Following a non-linear approach, we explore IMC events that are connected to anomalous atmospheric patterns. First, the analogs search is performed on ERA5 and historical simulations, so as to use the latter as a control run for future projections.  We then examine clusters and trends in the dates of analogs and study their predictability properties in the attractor space (e.g., local dimension and persistence). Then we explore how the trajectories of the precursors of the observed extreme event, emerging from the analog approach, may eventually lead to an IMC event in each available simulation. In this way, we can evaluate the probability of obtaining an observed event, given an initial condition. Finally, we evaluate the physical factors possibly connected to the change of probability of the event.