https://international.unitn.it/environmental-meteorology

MSc in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics, Via Mesiano, 77, Trento (2026)

19/05/2026

Thursday 21 May 2026 - 14:30 (UTC+2) - Seminar
"The Role of Natural and Anthropogenic Emissions in Air Quality and Climate"
Mihaela Mircea (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development - ENEA)
Sandro Finardi (ARIANET Srl)

Online (Zoom webinar):
https://unitn.zoom.us/j/87568515690 (Meeting ID: 875 6851 5690, Passcode: send an e-mail to [email protected])

The seminar can also be attended in the lecture room 1P - DICAM - University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, Trento

Abstract
Natural and anthropogenic emissions play a central role in determining air quality and influencing climate change processes at local, regional, and global scales. Anthropogenic emissions, mainly originating from transport, industry, energy production, and residential activities, are major sources of atmospheric pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), and greenhouse gases (GHGs such as CO2, CH4, N2O). These emissions are most of the time found in separated inventories: for air quality studies available at local/regional level, with high temporal (hourly) and spatial resolution (km) and for global/climate studies at national level as monthly/yearly averages as greenhouse gases mix globally, or gridded with limited spatial resolution (0.1-0.5 deg), for the historical period and future scenarios.
In contrast, natural emissions from vegetation, soils, and, in some cases, wildfires, are part of the air quality modelling systems or global/climate models. The biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emitted by vegetation influence the ozone formation and the production of secondary organic aerosol, thereby affecting both air pollution and radiative forcing. The LIFE VEG-GAP project (“VEGetation for urban Green Air quality Plans”) had investigated the effects of the complex interactions between urban vegetation, meteorology and atmospheric pollution in three European cities.
The Horizon Europe project FOCI (“Non-CO2 Forcers and their Climate, Weather, Health, and Air Quality Impacts”) aims to improve the description of short-lived climate forcers (SLCF) impact on climate and air quality. The FOCI project has pursued a comprehensive regional-scale modelling of atmospheric composition maintaining coherence with CMIP6 simulations and their driving emissions. Regional models have been verified against observations and reference air quality reanalysis over Europe during the latest part of the historical period (2005-2019) and then used to evaluate the SLCFs impact on 2050 climate and air quality under the SSP370 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 3-7.0) climate scenario. Results of the WRF+FARM modelling system will be presented.

Bios
Mihaela Mircea is a researcher at ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), based at the Bologna Research Centre in Italy. She works in the field of atmospheric science, with a particular focus on air quality and climate change modelling. Her research is focused on understanding the chemical and physical processes that determine the composition of the atmosphere. She develops and applies advanced numerical models to study air pollution, including the formation and evolution of aerosols, and their interactions with gases, clouds, and precipitation. She is also involved in modelling natural and anthropogenic emissions, such as desert dust, biogenic volatile organic compounds from vegetation, and emissions from forest fires. Her work contributes to improving predictions of pollutants like ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, as well as assessing their impacts on ecosystems and human health. In addition to her scientific research, she supports environmental policy at both national and European levels through air quality studies and model intercomparison projects. She is the Italian representative appointed by the Italian Ministry of the Environment (MASE) in the Forum for air quality modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE), the Task Force on Measurements and Modelling (TFMM) in the EMEP Program and EUModNet, the European group for air quality modelling in support of the implementation of the Air Quality Directive 2881/2024. She is co- coordinating the Italian group for the application of models in air quality assessment, group created by MASE that includes all Italian regions. She has authored numerous scientific publications on atmospheric modelling and air pollution, contributing to a better understanding of environmental processes and sustainable policy development.

Sandro Finardi is project manager and coordinator of R&D activities at ARIANET Srl in Milan (Italy). He holds a Degree in Physics and is a regional-scale atmospheric modeler with main experience focused on planetary boundary layer meteorology, air pollutants dispersion modelling, urban air quality and microclimate. He worked at ENEL research centers (CISE SpA, ENEL/Ricerca SpA and CESI SpA) and co-founded ARIANET in 2000. He has experience in meteorological modeling at local and meso-scale, in urban environment and over complex terrain. Further activities regarded surface-atmosphere interaction and atmospheric surface and boundary layer parameterizations. He worked on coupling meteorological and chemical transport models for air quality applications, and on the development of deterministic air quality prediction systems for urban areas and industrial sites. He studied long-range transport of desert dust and wildfire smoke to evaluate their air quality contribution. He investigated the population exposure to air pollutants to support health impact assessment at urban and regional scales. He studied the climate forcing impact on air pollution and the urban air quality and microclimate impact of nature-based solutions. He participated as national expert in COST Actions 710, 715, 728 and ES0602. He has been part of the WMO/GAW working group on the air quality impact of Covid-19 measures. He has been ARIANET principal investigator of the EC-funded projects FP5/FUMAPEX, FP7 MEGAPOLI, Horizon2020/CREATE (https://create-project.eu/), LIFE+/EXPAH and LIFE-PRE/VEG-GAP (https://lifeveggap.eu/). He is presently work-package leader of the Horizon Europe project FOCI “non-CO2 FOrcers and their Climate, weather, air quality and health Impacts” ( https://www.project-foci.eu/). He worked as consultant to support ENEA and Italian regional air quality agencies to implement and apply atmospheric modelling to support air quality forecast, assessment and management.

Disclaimer
This series of seminars is primarily targeted to Students attending the double-degree MSc Programme in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics, jointly offered by the Universities of Trento and Innsbruck (https://corsi.unitn.it/en/environmental-meteorology-and-climate-physics). However, all those who are interested are more than welcome to join!
If you would like to sign up for future announcements, please e-mail [email protected].

15/05/2026

Neil Lewis (University of Exeter): "Idealised General Circulation Modelling of the Atmospheres of Earth and Other Planets"
Monday 18 May 2026 - 12:00 (UTC+2)

Seminar Room 2R - DICAM - University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, Trento
and online (Zoom webinar):
https://unitn.zoom.us/j/87355301006 (Meeting ID: 873 5530 1006, Passcode: contact [email protected]).

Abstract
Comprehensive weather and climate models are a primary tool for conducting research into the atmospheric circulation and climate of the Earth and other planets. In particular, they are invaluable for numerical weather prediction, for determining the future impacts of climate change, and for interpreting spacecraft and telescope observations of other planets in the Solar system, and beyond. However, model complexity also introduces a barrier to developing a basic understanding of atmospheric circulation, by increasing the gap between simulation and fundamental theory. This has motivated the use of idealised climate models, which omit or simplify certain complex processes (e.g., ocean dynamics, land surface processes, moist processes), as tools to bridge the gap between basic theory and comprehensive models, and ultimately observations.
In the first half of this talk, I will introduce ‘Isca’, an open-source framework for constructing general circulation models (GCMs) for the Earth and other planets at varying levels of complexity, developed at the University of Exeter. Isca includes various forcing and radiative transfer options, the option to include or exclude moist processes, and functionality to configure the planetary surface with varying degrees of realism (e.g., ranging from a homogeneous, ’slab ocean’ surface, to a surface with land-sea contrast, topography, and prescribed oceanic heat transport). In addition, planetary and orbital parameters can be easily changed in order to simulate the atmospheres of planets other than Earth. I will give an overview of the science problems Isca has been applied to, before focusing on research I have conducted to investigate the effect of Arctic sea-ice loss on the persistence of surface temperature variability in mid-latitudes.
In the second half of this talk, I will introduce my current research, which involves constructing a new idealised GCM, ‘Planets3’, to study the atmospheric circulation of Jupiter’s polar regions. The NASA Juno mission has revealed long-lived clusters of circumpolar cyclones (CPCs) in Jupiter's polar regions. These observations were not predicted, challenging our understanding of fundamental fluid dynamics, and evade simulation by global numerical models, preventing us from testing theories for their existence. Planets3 will have the functionality to embed high-resolution regional grids (‘nests’) within a global GCM, enabling high-fidelity simulation of Jupiter’s polar regions. I will report preliminary results obtained using this model. In the future, my aim is to generalise Planets3 so that it can be applied to a wide range of planetary atmospheres (including Earth).

Bio
Neil Lewis is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Exeter, UK. He is primarily interested in using theory and numerical models to study atmospheric dynamics across a range of planetary environments. Neil completed his PhD at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Peter Read. His PhD research focused on the atmospheric dynamics of slowly rotating planets in the Solar System and extrasolar planets. Neil has since worked on a variety of problems, including: the persistence of midlatitude weather on Earth; interior convection in giant planets and stars; and the interpretation of JWST observations of exoplanets using GCM simulations. Currently, Neil’s research is focused on the dynamics of vortices in the polar regions of Jupiter’s stratified weather layer.

Disclaimer
This series of seminars is primarily targeted to Students attending the double-degree MSc Programme in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics, jointly offered by the Universities of Trento and Innsbruck (https://corsi.unitn.it/en/environmental-meteorology-and-climate-physics). However, all those who are interested are more than welcome to join!
If you would like to sign up for future announcements, please e-mail [email protected].

11/05/2026

Seminar - "Air quality modelling: from continental to urban scale"
Mihaela Mircea (1) , Giuseppe Calori (2) , Sandro Finardi (2)
(1) Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development-ENEA
(2) ARIANET Srl
Thursday 14 May 2026 - 14:30 (UTC+2)
Lecture Room 1P - DICAM - University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, Trento
and online (Zoom webinar):
https://unitn.zoom.us/j/83648685853 (Meeting ID: 836 4868 5853, Passcode: e-mail [email protected])

Abstract
Air quality is still a critical environmental and public health challenge across Europe, with persistent exceedances of regulatory limits for particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and ozone (O₃) in several regions (Air quality status in Europe 2026). In Italy, particularly in the Po Valley, complex anthropogenic and natural emission patterns, dense urbanization, and unfavorable meteorological conditions often lead to the highest pollution levels in the continent. The new EU Ambient Air Quality and Cleaner Air for Europe Directive (EU) 2024/2881 introduces more stringent limit values aligned with the latest WHO guidelines (2021) and emphasizes the central role of air quality modelling. In this context, we will present several air quality modelling frameworks used to support air quality assessment, forecasting, and policy development at national and regional level, contributing to the implementation of European directives and to the design of effective mitigation strategies aimed at improving air quality and protecting human health.

Bios
Mihaela Mircea is a researcher at ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), based at the Bologna Research Centre in Italy. She works in the field of atmospheric science, with a particular focus on air quality and climate change modelling. Her research is focused on understanding the chemical and physical processes that determine the composition of the atmosphere. She develops and applies advanced numerical models to study air pollution, including the formation and evolution of aerosols, and their interactions with gases, clouds, and precipitation. She is also involved in modelling natural and anthropogenic emissions, such as desert dust, biogenic volatile organic compounds from vegetation, and emissions from forest fires. Her work contributes to improving predictions of pollutants like ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, as well as assessing their impacts on ecosystems and human health. In addition to her scientific research, she supports environmental policy at both national and European levels through air quality studies and model intercomparison projects. She is the Italian representative appointed by the Italian Ministry of the Environment (MASE) in the Forum for air quality modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE), the Task Force on Measurements and Modelling (TFMM) in the EMEP Program and EUModNet, the European group for air quality modelling in support of the implementation of the Air Quality Directive 2881/2024. She is co- coordinating the Italian group for the application of models in air quality assessment, group created by MASE that includes all Italian regions. She has authored numerous scientific publications on atmospheric modelling and air pollution, contributing to a better understanding of environmental processes and sustainable policy development.

Giuseppe Calori, deputy director of Suez Arianet, is a senior expert in regional/urban modelling and air quality planning, holding a master’s degree in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in Automatica (both from Politecnico di Milano). Giuseppe started his research career at IIASA (International Institute for Applied System Analysis, Laxenburg, Vienna), then as a post-doc at Politecnico di Milano, mostly focusing on transboundary air pollution, and later as a visiting scholar at CGRER (Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, Univ. of Iowa), broadening his experience in chemical-transport modelling at regional and urban scales. Together with fellow colleagues, he founded ARIANET in year 2000, where he develops numerical simulation codes, leads impact studies and scenarios analyses for policy support for both public and private bodies, and contributes to commercial actions. His core experience is the development and application of air quality models and integrated modelling systems for policy support on regional and urban scales. Through the years, he has studied the influence of major emission sources on precipitation acidity in Italy through chemical Lagrangian back-trajectory and Eulerian models, then he contributed to the development of a national atmospheric simulation system to support the integrated assessment of emission abatement strategies related to acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone and PM over Italy: the MINNI project, financed by the Italian Ministry for the Environment. Over South Asia, he developed a multi-year source-receptor matrix for sulfur, performing a study of the combined effects of the emissions trends and the inter-annual meteorological variability on sulfur deposition, he estimated of the effects of future scenarios on sulfur and black carbon, and set up and applied a screening model for sulfur diffusion over Asian megacities, to quantify the relevance of local vs. regional sources (RAINS-Asia Project, World Bank). Over several urban areas and regions and different public authorities, he has performed yearly air quality evaluation through 3D chemical-transport models, analyzed source contributions, developed future emissions scenarios and assessed their effects on air quality for policy support, with special attention to the EU legislation. Concerning real-time application and forecast systems, he developed a Lagrangian model for real-time dispersion of radionuclides on a continental scale during emergency situations and contributed to the development of multiple air quality forecast systems, in Italy and abroad. Whenever possible, he continues his scientific career by publishing and reviewing articles, participating in conferences, and contributing to EU working groups, including the European Forum for Air quality Modelling (FAIRMODE).

Sandro Finardi is project manager and coordinator of R&D activities at ARIANET Srl in Milan (Italy). He holds a Degree in Physics and is a regional-scale atmospheric modeler with main experience focused on planetary boundary layer meteorology, air pollutants dispersion modelling, urban air quality and microclimate. He worked at ENEL research centers (CISE SpA, ENEL/Ricerca SpA and CESI SpA) and co-founded ARIANET in 2000. He has experience in meteorological modeling at local and meso-scale, in urban environment and over complex terrain. Further activities regarded surface-atmosphere interaction and atmospheric surface and boundary layer parameterizations. He worked on coupling meteorological and chemical transport models for air quality applications, and on the development of deterministic air quality prediction systems for urban areas and industrial sites. He studied long-range transport of desert dust and wildfire smoke to evaluate their air quality contribution. He investigated the population exposure to air pollutants to support health impact assessment at urban and regional scales. He studied the climate forcing impact on air pollution and the urban air quality and microclimate impact of nature-based solutions. He participated as national expert in COST Actions 710, 715, 728 and ES0602. He has been part of the WMO/GAW working group on the air quality impact of Covid-19 measures. He has been ARIANET principal investigator of the EC-funded projects FP5/FUMAPEX, FP7 MEGAPOLI, Horizon2020/CREATE (https://create-project.eu/), LIFE+/EXPAH and LIFE-PRE/VEG-GAP (https://lifeveggap.eu/). He is presently work-package leader of the Horizon Europe project FOCI “non-CO2 FOrcers and their Climate, weather, air quality and health Impacts” ( https://www.project-foci.eu/). He worked as consultant to support ENEA and Italian regional air quality agencies to implement and apply atmospheric modelling to support air quality forecast, assessment and management.

Disclaimer
This series of seminars is primarily targeted to Students attending the double-degree MSc Programme in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics, jointly offered by the Universities of Trento and Innsbruck (https://corsi.unitn.it/en/environmental-meteorology-and-climate-physics). However, all those who are interested are more than welcome to join!
If you would like to sign up for future announcements, please e-mail [email protected].

07/05/2026

On April 22 our 1st-year students visited the University of Innsbruck, where they will attend courses in the next fall term :-)

26/04/2026

Gregory Crawford, Ontario Tech University:
"Air-Sea Interaction: A View from the Other Side".
Thursday 30 April 2026 - 14:30 (UTC+2)
Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics Seminar
Lecture Room 1P - DICAM - University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, Trento
and
online: https://unitn.zoom.us/j/84256728762 (Meeting ID: 842 5672 8762, Passcode: please e-mail [email protected])

Abstract
Interactions across the air-sea interface are important for both atmosphere and ocean conditions and dynamics, including fluxes of mechanical energy and momentum, heat, water, and gases. In his 45 year career as a physical oceanographer (minus some years “lost” in higher education administration), the speaker has been involved in a number of pure and applied research projects that have involved assessing the upper ocean response to atmospheric forcing. In this talk, he will touch on a number of these studies, including: (1) acoustic remote sensing of gas exchange via gas bubbles, observed from a US Navy research submarine; (2) how winds that rotate locally in sync with inertial rotation, even for a few hours, can mix efficiently (and temporarily delay “access” to some of the heat stored in the upper ocean); (3) the creation of an ocean wave hazard prediction scheme for one of the most dangerous harbour entrances on the Pacific coast of North America. If time permits, he will also discuss some climatological analyses of oceanic conditions (including wind-driven upwelling) off the Pacific coast of Panama, based on historical satellite data. (Oh, and there may be a few stories as well.)

Bio
Dr. Crawford is a Professor of Physics at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics at the University of Victoria, Canada and his Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of British Columbia, Canada (joint with NCAR, in Boulder, Colorado, USA). He worked for two years at the Wave Propagation Lab of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Colorado on developing methods for ocean acoustic remote sensing. He did also postdoctoral work at Oregon State University, focusing on Crater Lake. He spent 12 years as a professor at Humboldt State University in California, helping (among other things) to establish the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System, CENCOOS (www.cencoos.org), then returned to Canada to become the Dean of Science and Technology at Vancouver Island University and then Dean of Science at Ontario Tech. He completed his decanal role in 2024, at which point he rejoined the professoriate.
A physical oceanographer by training, he has over four decades of experience in research and higher education in Canada, the US, and Panama. He works with universities, government agencies at all levels, and local communities. He has expertise in basic and applied research, including air-sea interaction, mixing, ocean observing systems, interdisciplinary projects, science in support of resource management and public safety, and the development and application of ocean remote sensing technologies. His current research projects include analyzing tsunami observations in northern California and revisiting thermobaric mixing processes in deep lakes like Crater Lake, Oregon.

Disclaimer
This series of seminars is primarily targeted to Students attending the double-degree MSc Programme in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics, jointly offered by the Universities of Trento and Innsbruck (https://corsi.unitn.it/en/environmental-meteorology-and-climate-physics). However, all those who are interested are more than welcome to join!
If you got this message from another party than the original sender (Lorenzo Giovannini) and would like to sign up for future announcements, please e-mail [email protected].

13/04/2026

Seminar - Thursday 16 April 2026 - 14:30 (UTC+2)
"Indian Ocean teleconnections to the North Atlantic and Europe: a challenging problem for long-range predictions"
by Franco Molteni (ECMWF/ItaliaMeteo)

Lecture Room 1P - DICAM - University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, Trento
and online (Zoom webinar):
https://unitn.zoom.us/j/81311875342
(Meeting ID: 813 1187 5342. For the passcode, please contact [email protected])

Abstract
In this presentation, we first summarise the state of the art on diagnostics and model simulation of teleconnections originated from the Indian Ocean, showing that similar problems exist when we look at the problem on a range of time scales, from the sub-seasonal to the interdecadal. While the relevance of Indian Ocean teleconnections to the northern extra-tropics has become increasingly evident in the last 10-15 years, from both diagnostic studies and specific numerical experimentation, the ability of global models to simulate such teleconnections when they interact with the full range of climate variability has hardly improved in recent years. We then present a range of teleconnection statistics on the interannual time scale, computed from observational data (ERA5 and GPCPv3.2 rainfall) and from five European seasonal forecast systems contributing to the multi-model ensemble of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). We show that current seasonal forecast models can reproduce reasonably well the connections between Indo-Pacific SST and rainfall during the boreal winter, but (consistently with earlier results) they can only simulate the connections of Indian Ocean SST and rainfall with the North Atlantic/European circulation with about (at best) half the amplitude of the signal from observational data. We also discuss the statistical significance of the differences between observed and model teleconnections, showing that the results are sensitive to the choice of datasets used in the observational diagnostics.

Bio
Franco Molteni is an experienced scientist in the area of climate dynamics and predictability. He held Section Head positions at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading (U.K.) and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy). He is author/co-author of over 100 scientific publications, covering weather and climate predictability, atmospheric dynamics, teleconnections and flow regimes. His main achievements include the implementation of ensemble prediction systems for seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts, and the development of intermediate-complexity models for the study of atmospheric and climate dynamics. He is currently a consultant for the ItaliaMeteo Agency and a visiting scientist at ECMWF and ICTP.

05/03/2026

"How is climate change amplified and stratified with elevation in mountain regions?"
Thursday 5 March 2026 - 14:30 (UTC+1)
Olivia Ferguglia (University of Turin)

Abstract
Mountains are widely recognised as highly sensitive to climate change and are often described as sentinels of rapid environmental transformation. High-altitude regions show amplified signals compared to lowlands and the global mean, with temperature, precipitation, and other key climate variables frequently exhibiting elevation-dependent trends and marked vertical stratification. This evidence has led to the concept of Elevation-Dependent Climate Change (EDCC), which expands the earlier framework of Elevation-Dependent Warming (EDW). Increasing attention has been devoted to elevation-dependent changes in precipitation and its extremes. Signals have been identified using reanalyses, in-situ observations, and Global Climate Models (GCMs), across different mountain regions, often with zonal and seasonal patterns that vary depending on the region. Particularly, it has been reported an intensification in extreme precipitation that increases with elevation, especially in future projections. However, methodologies used to assess EDCC lack a unified framework, and the physical mechanisms driving these responses are still not fully understood. Climate models offer several advantages to investigate such processes, providing coherent spatial and temporal information across variables within the same experiment. Despite improvements in CMIP6 models compared to CMIP5, substantial inter-model spread persists, representing both an uncertainty and an opportunity to better constrain the mechanisms underlying different EDCC patterns.

Bio
Olivia Ferguglia is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Physics at the University of Turin. Her research focuses on precipitation and its extremes, with particular emphasis on their elevation-dependent stratification, using both reanalysis datasets and climate model simulations.

27/01/2026

The call for applications for admission to our MSc Programme in the academic year 2026/27 is now open!
Deadline: 4 March 2026 at 12:00 CET.
Info at:https://corsi.unitn.it/sites/cds/files/2025-12/admission-call-master-env-meteo-climate-phys-26-27.pdf

23/12/2025

Congratulations to our most recent graduates:
- Antonio Palmeri
- Ruvimbo Tsomondo
- Serena Vezzani

17/12/2025

Our alumnus Fabio Leali was recently awarded a prize from the Foundation Canneti in Mantua for his MSc thesis: “Analysis of long-term series from measurements of the Historical Observatory in Mantua (1920-2023)”

Congratulations!
https://www.fondazionecanneti.it/it/attivita/cerimonia-premio-di-studio-2025/

MSc in Environmental Meteorology and Climate Physics

19/05/2026

15/05/2026

11/05/2026

07/05/2026

26/04/2026

13/04/2026

05/03/2026

27/01/2026

23/12/2025

17/12/2025

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