Seneviratne, Sonia I., Prof.

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Research interests

• Land-climate interactions, soil moisture dynamics, and climate-relevant vegetation processes
• Climate change and extreme events, droughts, hot extremes
• Climate feedbacks and memory effects
• Interface between water, energy and biogeochemical cycles
• Climate and land surface modelling, new approaches to model validation
• Evaluation of land datasets, field measurements
• Land water and energy budgets

Publications

Selected recent publications

Seneviratne, S.I., N. Nicholls, D. Easterling, C.M. Goodess, S. Kanae, J. Kossin, Y. Luo, J. Marengo, K. McInnes, M. Rahimi, M. Reichstein, A. Sorteberg, C. Vera, and X. Zhang, 2012: Changes in climate extremes and their impacts on the natural physical environment. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pp. 109-230. [Full IPCC SREX Report, Chapter 3; SREX web site]
->Some media reports and background information on the IPCC SREX report:
ETH Klimablog: Das IPCC SREX in Kürze, Qualitätskontrolle im IPCC SREX; ETH Life Interview: Deutsch, English; IPCC SREX Video; Media articles: SciDevNet, NZZ, Die Zeit, Environmental Health Perspectives

IPCC, 2012: Summary for Policymakers. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 1-19. (in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish)

Mueller, B., and S.I. Seneviratne, 2012: Hot days induced by precipitation deficits at the global scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109 (31), 12398-12403, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204330109. (pdf; ETH Life article; TagesAnzeiger; Los Angeles Times; Research Highlight in Nature Geoscience)

Seneviratne, S.I., 2012: Historical drought trends revisited. Nature, 491, 338-339. (link)

Quesada, B., R. Vautard, P. Yiou, M. Hirschi, and S.I. Seneviratne, 2012: Asymmetric European summer heat predictability from wet and dry Southern winter/springs. Nature Climate Change, 2, 736-741, doi:10.1038/nclimate1536. (link; pdf; ScienceDaily)

Seneviratne, S.I., and R.D. Koster, 2012: A revised framework for analyzing soil moisture memory in climate data: Derivation and interpretation. J. Hydrometeorology, 13, 404-412, doi: 10.1175/JHM-D-11-044.1. (pdf)

Mittelbach, H., and S.I. Seneviratne, 2012: A new perspective on the spatio-temporal variability of soil moisture: Temporal dynamics versus time invariant contributions. Hydr. Earth Syst. Sci, 16, 2169–2179, doi:10.5194/hess-16-2169-2012. (abstract; pdf)

Orlowsky, B., and S.I. Seneviratne, 2012: Global changes in extreme events: Regional and seasonal dimension. Climatic Change, 110, 669-696, doi: 10.1007/s10584-011-0122-9. (pdf)

Hirschi, M., S.I. Seneviratne, V. Alexandrov, F. Boberg, C. Boroneant, O.B. Christensen, H. Formayer, B. Orlowsky, and P. Stepanek, 2011: Observational evidence for soil-moisture impact on hot extremes in southeastern Europe. Nature Geoscience, 4, 17-21, doi:10.1038/ngeo1032. (pdf; link; News and Views; ETH Life article)

Davin, E.L, R. Stöckli, E.B. Jaeger, S. Levis, and S.I. Seneviratne, 2011: COSMO-CLM²: a new version of the COSMO-CLM model coupled to the Community Land Model. Climate Dynamics, 37, 1889-1907, doi: 10.1007/s00382-011-1019-z. (pdf)

Jaeger, E.B., and S.I. Seneviratne, 2011: Impact of soil moisture-atmosphere coupling on European climate extremes and trends in a regional climate model. Climate Dynamics, 36 (9-10), 1919-1939, doi: 10.1007/s00382-010-0780-8. (pdf)

Mueller, B., S.I. Seneviratne, C. Jimenez, T. Corti, M. Hirschi, G. Balsamo, P. Ciais, P. Dirmeyer, J.B. Fisher, Z. Guo, M. Jung, F. Maignan, M.F. McCabe, R. Reichle, M. Reichstein, M. Rodell, J. Sheffield, A.J. Teuling, K. Wang, E.F. Wood, and Y. Zhang, 2011: Evaluation of global observations-based evapotranspiration datasets and IPCC AR4 simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L06402, doi:10.1029/2010GL046230 (pdf)

Seneviratne, S.I., T. Corti, E.L. Davin, M. Hirschi, E.B. Jaeger, I. Lehner, B. Orlowsky, and A.J. Teuling, 2010: Investigating soil moisture-climate interactions in a changing climate: A review. Earth-Science Reviews, 99, 3-4, 125-161, doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2010.02.004. (pdf)

Jung, M., M. Reichstein, P. Ciais, S.I. Seneviratne, J. Sheffield, M.L. Goulden, G. Bonan, A. Cescatti, J. Chen, R. de Jeu, A.J. Dolman, W. Eugster, D. Gerten, D. Gianelle, N. Gobron, J. Heinke, J. Kimball, B.E. Law, L. Montagnani, Q. Mu, B. Mueller, K. Oleson, D. Papale, A.D. Richardson, O. Roupsard, S. Running, E. Tomelleri, N. Viovy, U. Weber, C. Williams, E. Wood, S. Zaehle, K. Zhang, 2010: Recent decline in the global land evapotranspiration trend due to limited moisture supply. Nature, 467, 951-954. doi:10.1038/nature09396. (pdf; link)

Teuling, A.J., S.I. Seneviratne, R. Stöckli, M. Reichstein, E. Moors, P. Ciais, S. Luyssaert, B. van den Hurk, C. Ammann, C. Bernhofer, E. Dellwik, D. Gianelle, B. Gielen, T. Grünwald, K. Klumpp, L. Montagnani, C. Moureaux, M. Sottocornola, and G. Wohlfahrt, 2010: Contrasting response of European forest and grassland energy exchange to heatwaves. Nature Geoscience, 3, 722-727, doi:10.1038/ngeo950. (pdf; link; ETH life article)

Seneviratne, S.I., D. Lüthi, M. Litschi, and C. Schär, 2006: Land-atmosphere coupling and climate change in Europe. Nature, 443, 205-209. (pdf; suppl. info.; link; editor's summary)

Full list of publications

Invited Presentations

List of invited and solicited presentations (selected)

Lectures

Land-Climate Interactions (MSc)

Rietholzbach Field Course (MSc)

Messmethoden in der Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (BSc)

Research Projects

(see also our research pages)

ESA Soil moisture CCI, 2012-2014

EU-FP7 EMBRACE, 2011-2015

EU-FP7 DROUGHT-R&SPI, 2011-2014

ETH CHIRP2, 2012-1015

SNF Sinergia Carbo-Count CH, 2012-2014

NRP61 DROUGHT-CH, 2010-2012

EU-FP7 CARBO-Extreme, 2009-2013

NCCR-Climate Phase III, 2009-2012

SwissSMEX (SNF), 2008-2011

MAIOLICA (CCES), 2008-2012

NCCR-Climate Phase II (SwissRe-funded project), 2007-2009

EU-FP6 CECILIA, 2006-2009

Scientific Service

Selected service contributions

IPCC SREX report (2009-2012, Coordinating Lead Author)

ECMWF Scientific Advisory Committee (2012-)

ILEAPS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) (2008-)

WCRP GEWEX Data and Assessment Panel (GDAP) (2008-)

WCRP GEWEX GLASS Panel (2008-)

Short CV

2013- Associate Professor, ETH Zurich
2007-2012 Assistant Professor, ETH Zurich
2005-2007 Senior research scientist, ETH Zurich
2003-2004 Visiting research associate, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt (MD), USA
1999-2002 PhD thesis, ETH Zurich
1998-1999 Visiting scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge (MA), USA
1995-1999 MSc in Environmental Sciences (Major: Atmospheric Physics), ETH Zurich, Switzerland
1992-1995 BSc in Biology ("Attestation de Pré-licence"), University of Lausanne, Switzerland