.jpg "Emanuele Bevacqua")
Dr. Emanuele Bevacqua
Researcher
Address
Research Interests
Trained as a physicist, I study climate and weather extreme events in a changing climate. My research focuses on advancing our understanding of compound weather and climate extreme events, which are combinations of climatic drivers or hazards that cause most of the societal and environmental impacts. I lead the Compound Climate Extremes group, which is supported by the Emmy Noether Programme. With my team, we integrate observations, novel climate large ensemble climate model simulations providing hundreds to thousands of years of data, and impact models such as hydrological and renewable energy models, to study a wide range of compound events. Our research spans widespread floods, wildfire-favorable hot-dry conditions, multi-region droughts threatening food security, and adverse weather affecting renewable energy production. We investigate the physical drivers of compound events and assess the impact of climate variability and change on these events under present and future conditions. We also inform about uncertainties in projections and potential worst-case climate outcomes that may surprise society with extreme impacts.
Career
| Since 06/2024 |
Emmy Noether Group Leader Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. |
| Since 01/2024 |
Deputy Head of the Compound Environmental Risks department Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. |
|
01/2021–05/2024 |
Postdoctoral Researcher Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. |
|
02/2020–12/2020 |
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, United Kingdom. |
|
03/2019–01/2020 |
Postdoctoral Research Assistant Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, United Kingdom. |
| 09/2018–02/2019 |
Postdoctoral Research Scientist Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria. |
| 11/2014–09/2018 |
PhD student Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria & GEOMAR – Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany. |
Education
| 09/2018 |
PhD in Physics (Climate Science) Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria. |
| 10/2014 |
Master of Science in Physics (Geophysics and Astrophysics) University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy. |
|
12/2012 |
Bachelor’s degree in Physics University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy. |
Selected Publications
- Bevacqua, E., Schleussner, C.-F., and Zscheischler, J. (2025). "A year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit". Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02246-9.
- Bevacqua, E., Rakovec, O., Schumacher, D. L., Kumar, R., Thober, S., Samaniego, L., Seneviratne, S. I., and Zscheischler, J. (2024). “Direct and lagged climate change effects intensified the 2022 European drought”. Nature Geoscience, 17, 1100–1107, DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01559-2.
Bevacqua, E., Suarez-Gutierrez, L., Jezequel, A., Lehner, F., Vrac, M., Yiou, P., and Zscheischler, J. (2023). “Advancing research on compound weather and climate events via large ensemble model simulations”, Nature Communications, 14, 2145, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37847-5.
- Bevacqua, E., Zappa, G., Lehner, F., and Zscheischler, J. (2022). “Precipitation trends determine future occurrences of compound hot-dry events”. Nature Climate Change, 12, 350–355, DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01309-5.
- Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A. F. S., Ramos, A. M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S. C., Pinto, J. G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., Zscheischler, J. (2021). “Guidelines for studying diverse types of compound weather and climate events”. Earth’s Future, 9, e2021EF002340, DOI: 10.1029/2021EF002340.
- Bevacqua, E., Maraun, D., Vousdoukas, M. I., Voukouvalas, E., Vrac, M., Mentaschi, L., and Widmann, M. (2019). “Higher probability of compound flooding from precipitation and storm surge in Europe under anthropogenic climate change”. Science Advances, 5(9), eaaw5531, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw5531.
- Bevacqua, E., Maraun, D., Haff, I. H., Widmann, M., and Vrac, M. (2017). “Multivariate statistical modelling of compound events via pair-copula constructions: analysis of floods in Ravenna (Italy)”. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21, 2701-2723, DOI: 10.5194/hess-21-2701-2017.
Funding
- 2025-2027. SEESAW: Societal and Environmental impacts of complex ExtremeS in a chAnging World (co-PI, ~500,000 € in total for a cohort of four PhD students, one directly supervised and one co-supervised by myself; Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ).
2024–2029. ADVICE: ADVancing the Investigation of Compound Events via large ensemble climate model simulations (PI, ~1,500,000 €; Emmy Noether Programme of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
- 2018–2022. DAMOCLES: UnDerstanding And Modeling cOmpound CLimate and weather EventS (Secondary proposer, ~600,000; COST Action).
Publications
The following provides a list of publications arising from work at UFZ Leipzig since 2021.
2025 (4)
- Bevacqua, E. (2025):
Code for paper: Bevacqua et al. (2025), Nature Climate Change
Version: v1.0.0 Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14637944 - Bevacqua, E., Schleussner, C.-F., Zscheischler, J. (2025):
A year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20 yr period that will exceed the Paris Agreement limit
Nat. Clim. Chang. 15 (3), 262 - 265 10.1038/s41558-025-02246-9 - Feng, S., Zscheischler, J., Hao, Z., Bevacqua, E. (2025):
Growing human-induced climate change fingerprint in regional weekly fire extremes
npj Clim. Atmos. Sci. 8 , art. 152 10.1038/s41612-025-01021-z - Li, J., Zhang, Y., Bevacqua, E., Zscheischler, J., Keenan, T.F., Lian, X., Zhou, S., Zhang, H., He, M., Piao, S. (2025):
Author correction: Future increase in compound soil drought-heat extremes exacerbated by vegetation greening (vol 15, 10875, 2024)
Nat. Commun. 16 , art. 623 10.1038/s41467-025-55979-8
2024 (12)
- Banfi, F., Bevacqua, E., Rivoire, P., Oliveira, S.C., Pinto, J.G., Ramos, A.M., De Michele, C. (2024):
Temporal clustering of precipitation for detection of potential landslides
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 24 (8), 2689 - 2704 10.5194/nhess-24-2689-2024 - Bevacqua, E., Rakovec, O., Schumacher, D.L., Kumar, R., Thober, S., Samaniego, L., Seneviratne, S.I., Zscheischler, J. (2024):
Direct and lagged climate change effects intensified the 2022 European drought
Nat. Geosci. 17 (11), 1100 - 1107 10.1038/s41561-024-01559-2 - Fang, B., Bevacqua, E., Rakovec, O., Zscheischler, J. (2024):
An increase in the spatial extent of European floods over the last 70 years
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 28 (16), 3755 - 3775 10.5194/hess-28-3755-2024 - Gimeno-Sotelo, L., Bevacqua, E., Fernández-Alvarez, J.C., Barriopedro, D., Zscheischler, J., Gimeno, L. (2024):
Projected changes in extreme daily precipitation linked to changes in precipitable water and vertical velocity in CMIP6 models
Atmos. Res. 304 , art. 107413 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107413 - Jézéquel, A., Bastos, A., Wilson, A.M., Ramos, A.M., Shepherd, T.G., Stuart-Smith, R., Kimutai, J., Moemken, J., Zscheischler, J., Faranda, D., Lehner, F., Le Grix, N., Sippel, S., Bevacqua, E., Rufat, S., D'Andrea, F., Lloyd, E.A., Van Loon, A.F. (2024):
Broadening the scope of anthropogenic influence in extreme event attribution
Environmental Research: Climate 3 (4), art. 042003 10.1088/2752-5295/ad7527 - Lembo, V., Bordoni, S., Bevacqua, E., Domeisen, D.I.V., Franzke, C.L.E., Galfi, V.M., Garfinkel, C.I., Grams, C.M., Hochman, A., Jha, R., Kornhuber, K., Kwasniok, F., Lucarini, V., Messori, G., Pappert, D., Perez-Fernandez, I., Riboldi, J., Russo, E., Shaw, T.A., Strigunova, I., Strnad, F., Yiou, P., Zagar, N. (2024):
Dynamics, statistics, and predictability of Rossby waves, heat waves, and spatially compounding extreme events
Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 105 (12), E2283 - E2293 10.1175/BAMS-D-24-0145.1 - Li, D., Zscheischler, J., Chen, Y., Yin, B., Feng, J., Freund, M., Qi, J., Zhu, Y., Bevacqua, E. (2024):
Intensification and poleward shift of compound wind and precipitation extremes in a warmer climate
Geophys. Res. Lett. 51 (11), e2024GL110135 10.1029/2024GL110135 - Li, J., Zhang, Y., Bevacqua, E., Zscheischler, J., Keenan, T.F., Lian, X., Zhou, S., Zhang, H., He, M., Piao, S. (2024):
Future increase in compound soil drought-heat extremes exacerbated by vegetation greening
Nat. Commun. 15 , art. 10875 10.1038/s41467-024-55175-0 - Matte, D., Christensen, J.H., Drews, M., Sobolowski, S., Paquin, D., Lynch, A., Kettleborough, H., Thompson, V., Bevacqua, E., Heinrich, D., Pryor, S.C., Böhnisch, A., Feser, F., Prein, A.F., Fischer, E., Leduc, M. (2024):
How to engage and adapt to unprecedented extremes
Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 105 (8), E1407 - E1415 10.1175/BAMS-D-24-0138.1 - Muheki, D., Deijns, A.A.J., Bevacqua, E., Messori, G., Zscheischler, J., Thiery, W. (2024):
The perfect storm? Co-occurring climate extremes in East Africa
Earth Syst. Dynam. 15 (2), 429 - 466 10.5194/esd-15-429-2024 - Muheki, D., Deijns, A.A.J., Bevacqua, E., Messori, G., Zscheischler, J., Thiery, W. (2024):
VUB-HYDR/co_occurring_climate_extremes_in_east_africa (v.1.0.0)
Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.10970524 - Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Alexander, L.V., King, A.D., Kew, S.F., Philip, S.Y., Barnes, C., Maraun, D., Stuart-Smith, R.F., Jézéquel, A., Bevacqua, E., Burgess, S., Fischer, E., Hegerl, G.C., Kimutai, J., Koren, G., Lawal, K.A., Min, S.-K., New, M., Odoulami, R.C., Patricola, C.M., Pinto, I., Ribes, A., Shaw, T.A., Thiery, W., Trewin, B., Vautard, R., Wehner, M., Zscheischler, J. (2024):
Frontiers in attributing climate extremes and associated impacts
Front. Clim. 6 , art. 1455023 10.3389/fclim.2024.1455023
2023 (6)
- Bevacqua, E., Suarez-Gutierrez, L., Jézéquel, A., Lehner, F., Vrac, M., Yiou, P., Zscheischler, J. (2023):
Advancing research on compound weather and climate events via large ensemble model simulations
Nat. Commun. 14 , art. 2145 10.1038/s41467-023-37847-5 - Gimeno-Sotelo, L., Bevacqua, E., Gimeno, L. (2023):
Combinations of drivers that most favor the occurrence of daily precipitation extremes
Atmos. Res. 294 , art. 109695 10.1016/j.atmosres.2023.106959 - Li, J., Bevacqua, E., Wang, Z., Sitch, S., Arora, V., Arneth, A., Jain, A.K., Goll, D., Tian, H., Zscheischler, J. (2023):
Hydroclimatic extremes contribute to asymmetric trends in ecosystem productivity loss
Commun. Earth Environ. 4 , art. 197 10.1038/s43247-023-00869-4 - Manning, C., Widmann, M., Maraun, D., Van Loon, A.F., Bevacqua, E. (2023):
Large spread in the representation of compound long-duration dry and hot spells over Europe in CMIP5
Weather Clim. Dynam. 4 , 309 - 329 10.5194/wcd-4-309-2023 - Qian, C., Ye, Y., Bevacqua, E., Zscheischler, J. (2023):
Human influences on spatially compounding flooding and heatwave events in China and future increasing risks
Weather Clim. Extremes 42 , art. 100616 10.1016/j.wace.2023.100616 - Richards, J., Huser, R., Bevacqua, E., Zscheischler, J. (2023):
Insights into the drivers and spatiotemporal trends of extreme Mediterranean wildfires with statistical deep learning
Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems (AIES) 2 (4), e220095 10.1175/AIES-D-22-0095.1
2022 (7)
- Bevacqua, E., Zappa, G., Lehner, F., Zscheischler, J. (2022):
Precipitation trends determine future occurrences of compound hot–dry events
Nat. Clim. Chang. 12 (4), 350 - 355 10.1038/s41558-022-01309-5 - Jiang, S., Bevacqua, E., Zscheischler, J. (2022):
River flooding mechanisms and their changes in Europe revealed by explainable machine learning
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 26 (24), 6339 - 6359 10.5194/hess-26-6339-2022 - Li, D., Chen, Y., Messmer, M., Zhu, Y., Feng, J., Yin, B., Bevacqua, E. (2022):
Compound wind and precipitation extremes across the Indo-Pacific: Climatology, variability and drivers
Geophys. Res. Lett. 49 (14), e2022GL098594 10.1029/2022GL098594 - Li, J., Bevacqua, E., Chen, C., Wang, Z., Chen, X., Myneni, R.B., Wu, X., Xu, C.-Y., Zhang, Z., Zscheischler, J. (2022):
Regional asymmetry in the response of global vegetation growth to springtime compound climate events
Commun. Earth Environ. 3 , art. 123 10.1038/s43247-022-00455-0 - Maraun, D., Knevels, R., Mishra, A.N., Truhetz, H., Bevacqua, E., Proske, H., Zappa, G., Brenning, A., Petschko, H., Schaffer, A., Leopold, P., Puxley, B.L. (2022):
Data for: A severe landslide event in the Alpine foreland under possible future climate and land-use changes [Data set]
Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.6036814 - Maraun, D., Knevels, R., Mishra, A.N., Truhetz, H., Bevacqua, E., Proske, H., Zappa, G., Brenning, A., Petschko, H., Schaffer, A., Leopold, P., Puxley, B.L. (2022):
A severe landslide event in the Alpine foreland under possible future climate and land-use changes
Commun. Earth Environ. 3 , art. 87 10.1038/s43247-022-00408-7 - Switanek, M., Maraun, D., Bevacqua, E. (2022):
Stochastic downscaling of gridded precipitation to spatially coherent subgrid precipitation fields using a transformed Gaussian model
Int. J. Climatol. 42 (12), 6126 - 6147 10.1002/joc.7581
2021 (3)
- Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A.F.S., Ramos, A.M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S.C., Pinto, J.G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., Zscheischler, J. (2021):
Guidelines for studying diverse types of compound weather and climate events
Earth Future 9 (11), e2021EF002340 10.1029/2021EF002340 - Bevacqua, E., Shepherd, T.G., Watson, P.A.G., Sparrow, S., Wallom, D., Mitchell, D. (2021):
Larger spatial footprint of wintertime total precipitation extremes in a warmer climate
Geophys. Res. Lett. 48 (8), e2020GL091990 10.1029/2020GL091990 - Villalobos-Herrera, R., Bevacqua, E., Ribeiro, A.F.S., Auld, G., Crocetti, L., Mircheva, B., Ha, M., Zscheischler, J., De Michele, C. (2021):
Towards a compound-event-oriented climate model evaluation: a decomposition of the underlying biases in multivariate fire and heat stress hazards
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 21 (6), 1867 - 1885 10.5194/nhess-21-1867-2021