Methodology
⚒️ Our methodology is fully peer reviewed ans described in full details in the Open Access Copernicus Journal Weather and Climate Dynamics:
🗺️ The object studied (i.e. "the event") is a surface-pressure pattern over a certain region and averaged over a certain number of days, that has led to extreme weather conditions. The methodology consists of looking for weather conditions similar to those that caused the extreme event of interest with physics-informed machine-learning methodologies. We focus on the historical data, namely the period since 1979 for MSWX data and since 1950 for ERA5 data.
🛰️ We split the dataset into two parts of equal length and consider the first half of the historical period as "past" and the second part as "present" separately. For the analyses conducted before December 6, 2024, we use data from MSWX. For analyses after December 6, 2024, we use ERA5 reanalysis, complemented with GFS forecasts for up-to-date coverage. We then compare how the selected weather conditions have changed between the two periods, and whether such changes are likely due to natural climate variability or anthropogenic climate change.
📊We use historical data and do not rely on numerical model simulations. This makes the framework rapid and reproducible. However, it also comes with disadvantages, since in some cases the extreme events result from very unusual weather situations that have not previously occurred, which hinders our analysis.
📑Our reports are crafted by combining meteorological, scientific, and news reports, with the assistance of conversational tools like ClimateQA and ChatGPT. The graphic artworks of the website are produced using Dall-E-2.
👇 Below is a graphical explanation of ClimaMeter. More detailed information is provided in the FAQs. Note that, the figures and the wording used here refer to the last version of our figure, the old reports may show a slightly different figure that is produced with the same methodology. Only the wording and the colors are updated.
FAQs on the Methodology
1) How do you download the data?
Analyses conducted before December 6, 2024
We download the latest available MSWX data. We always use MSWX-Past data when available and we complete for very recent data with the MSWX-NRT (MSWX near real-time) extension.
Analyses conducted after December 6, 2024
We download the ERA5 dataset from the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS), through the CDSupdate Python package (Hisi et al., 2024). Additionally, we add forecasts from the Global Forecast System (GFS) to complement the dataset with data up to the current day.
2) How do you define your event of interest?
The object studied is a surface-pressure pattern over a certain region and averaged over a certain number of days, that has lead to a extreme weather conditions.
More specifically, after obtaining the data, we define the length of the event in terms of days when the largest impacts from extreme weather conditions (heat, wind, rain) have been reported and we select the geographical region to analyse based on the meteorological phenomena that caused the event. For example, in the case of a summer heatwave we would select a region including the high pressure causing the heatwave. The length of the event is specified in the title of the Climameter the region is exactly the one shown in the map.
3) Which data you download and how you pre-process them?
Analyses conducted before December 6, 2024
We download pressure, near-surface temperature, total precipitation and wind-speed data from MSWX reanalyses with a daily time resolution. In order to account for the seasonal cycle in pressure and temperature data, we remove at each grid point and for each day the average of the pressure and temperature values for all the corresponding calendar days.
For surface pressure this removes the effect of varying surface elevation in space. Total precipitation and wind-speed data are not preprocessed. If the duration of the event is greater than one day, we perform a moving average of the length of the event duration on all datasets.
Analyses conducted after December 6, 2024
ERA5 reanalysis: from the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS) we download, through the CDSupdate Python package (Hisi et al., 2024), mean sea level pressure (msl), 2-meter temperature (t2m), total precipitation (tp), and 10-meter u- and v-component of wind (10u, 10v). The data have a 0.25° x 0.25° spatial resolution and a daily temporal resolution. ERA5 have a latency of approximately 5 days.
GFS forecasts: for the very recent days, for which ERA5 reanalysis has not been released yet, we download Global Forecast System (GFS) forecasts of mean sea level pressure (prmsl), 2-meter temperature (2t), total precipitation accumulated over the previous 3 hours (tp), and u- and v-component of wind (10u, 10v). The wind speed is then calculated from the u- and v-component of wind. The data have a 0.25° x 0.25°. For each day we download the forecasts at 6-hour lead times, from the model initialized at 0h, 6h, 12h, 18h. For sea level pressure, 2-meter temperature, and wind speed, the average over the four forecasts of the same day is calculated. For total precipitation accumulated over 3 hours, we calculate the cumulative precipitation for the entire day by summing the forecasts corresponding to that day.
Before merging the two datasets, they are resampled to match the 0.5° x 0.5° spatial resolution (compatible with the resolution of ERA5 reanalysis available in Climate Explorer).
To account for the seasonal cycle in mean sea level pressure and temperature data, we remove at each grid point and for each day the average of the pressure and temperature values for all the corresponding calendar days.
Note that there can be local discrepancies between local station observations and the gridded products that are used in ClimaMeter.
4) How do you find similar past events to the one you have defined?
The search for similar past events is based on defining analogues of the identified surface pressure patterns over the chosen spatio-temporal domain (see FAQ 2). We split the dataset into two parts of equal length and consider the first half as "past" and the second part as "present" separately. We consider the first period as representative of a past world with a weaker anthropogenic influence on climate than the second period, which represents the present world affected by anthropogenic climate change. The analogues search is only performed on surface pressure data. Results reported for temperature, precipitation and wind-speed data are always associated with surface pressure analogues.
5) How many similar past events do you select?
For each period, we examine all daily surface pressure data and select the best 15 analogues from MSWX data and the best 30 analogues from ERA5 + GFS data (*), i.e. the data minimizing the Euclidean distance to the event itself. The number of analogues corresponds approximately to the smallest 1‰ Euclidean distances in each subset of our data. For MSWX data, we tested the extraction of 10 to 20 analogues, without finding qualitatively important differences in our results. For the present period, as is customary in attribution studies, the event itself is excluded.
(*) For longer events such as floods occurring on an entire season, we may use a larger sample of analogues. If this is the case, this will be specified in the event description.
6) How do you take into account the role of the natural climate variability?
Here, we assume that over 20 years is a long enough period to average out high-frequency interannual climate variability. To account for the possible influence of low-frequency modes of natural variability in explaining the differences between the two periods, we also consider the possible roles of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). We perform this analysis using monthly indices produced by NOAA/ERSSTv5. Data for ENSO and AMO are retrieved from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) Climate Explorer, while the PDO time series is downloaded from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
7) How do you determine the role of the natural variability VS human-induced climate change in the top-left gauge of the ClimaMeter?
The gauge can take values between 0% (pointing to the left) and 100% (pointing to the right). We look on whether the analogues occurred in a statistically significant different phase of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and/or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Whenever a statistically significant differences between phases of ENSO, AMO or PDO is observed we subtract 30% from the gauge value starting from 95%. We do not use 0% or 100% to acknowledge data and analysis uncertainties.
8) How do you determine the rarity of the event displayed in the top-right gauge of the ClimaMeter?
The gauge can take values between 0% (pointing to the left) and 100% (pointing to the right). We define several quantities to support our interpretation of analogue-based assignment, including the analogue quality Q, which is the average Euclidean distance of a given day from its closest analogues. If for both the periods, the value of Q for the event is below the 75th percentile of the distribution of Qs computed for all days in each period, we assign the gauge the value 5% (Rare Meteorological Event). If instead, for both periods the value of Q is below the 95th percentile, we assign 30%. If for one of the two periods this condition does not hold, we assign 60%. Finally, if the value of Q for the extreme event exceeds the 95th percentile for both periods, we assign the gauge the value 95% (Very Exceptional Meteorological Event). We do not use 0% or 100% to acknowledge data and analysis uncertainties.
9) What do you mean by anomalies in the maps displayed the upper central panels of the ClimaMeter?
For pressure, we display the difference between the average surface pressure in the region for the duration of the event minus the average surface pressure for those same calendar days in the whole available period. For example, if an extreme event happens on the 20th-27th July 2023, the pressure anomaly at a given location is the average pressure on the 20th to 27th July 2023 minus the average pressure on all 20th to 27th Julys from 1979 to 2023 for MSWX data and from 1950 to 2023 fro ERA5+GFS data . For temperature, we do as for pressure. We do not compute anomalies for precipitation and windspeed because of their very noisy nature.
10) What do you mean by changes in the maps displayed in the lower central panels of the ClimaMeter?
The pressure map displays the difference in the average pressure for all analogues in the present period minus the average pressure for all analogues in the past period. The same is done for temperature. To determine if changes between the two periods are meaningful, we adopt a bootstrap procedure which consists of pooling the dates from the two periods together, randomly extracting 15 dates from this pool 100 times, creating the corresponding difference maps and marking only grid point changes more than two standard deviations above or below the mean of the bootstrap sample.
11) How do you determine that changes in your results are meaningful?
Changes between the distributions of variables during the past and present periods is evaluated using a two-tailed Cramér-von Mises test at the 0.05 significance level. If the p-value is smaller than 0.05, the null hypothesis that both samples are from the same distribution is rejected, namely we interpret the distributions as different. We use this test to determine the role of natural variability.
12) Do you update or modify your reports?
For analyses conducted before December 6, 2024 we used preliminary MSWX data. For analyses conducted after December 6, 2024 we use ERA5 data, complemented by forecasts from the Global Forecast System (GFS) for the most recent dates. We release our report as soon as possible after an extreme event has occurred. When updated climate data is available, we may update our report. We also welcome feedback from researchers and the general public, and may update our reports as a result of this feedback. This means that we may update a given report multiple times. For every report, we provide under the title the first publication date, the date of the latest update, and the date when the report was finalised. Once the report is finalised, we will not change it further, and we will provide a PDF version of the report as well as a DOI to cite the report. The finalisation of the report may happen several months after the occurrence of the extreme event being analysed.