Snowfall series of Turin, 1784-1992: climatological analysis and action on structures

The snowfall series of Turin, northwest Italy, is one of the longest available for Europe, with daily observations starting in 1784 and continuous since 1788. The unpublished 207 years data set was carefully obtained from original manuscripts and filed on magnetic media. Mean yearly snowfall amount is 48.9 cm showing a high interannual variability (variation coefficient 79%), with about seven snow days from October through April; the maximum amount was measured in winter 1784–85 (233 cm), followed by 1808–9 with 163 cm. Maximum daily amount was on 4 December 1844 with 64 cm. During the whole period a negative trend is exhibited, increasing in the years following 1890. This pattern is confirmed by the Mann-Kendall test. The change derives from regional climate rather than expansion of the urban area. Return periods of yearly maximum snow loads are calculated in order to contribute to the definition of new values for structural design. A case study of heavy snowfall in January 1987 is examined

Urban air pollution, climate change and wildfires: The case study of an extended forest fire episode in northern Italy favoured by drought and warm weather conditions

The aim of the paper is to describe the spread forest fire event occurred in the Italian Alps in 2017 under extremely drought conditions. In the study the root causes of wildfires and their direct relapses to the air quality of the Western Po valley and the urban centre of Torino have been assessed by means of air pollution measurements (focused to particulate matter with reference samplers and optical particle counters OPCs), meteorological indicators and additional public data. Results show a good correlation among different urban sites and instrument technologies. Concentration data, compared with environmental conditions and historical values describe the clear impact of fires on both local and regional air quality. Indeed, the deferred impact of wildfires on the local wood biomass energy supply chain is briefly outlined. Keywords: Air quality, Biomass, Climate change, Forest fires, Particulate matter, Wildfire

Applying a probabilistic model of rainfall and snow days occurrence to daily series recorded in NW Italy.

Daily precipitation records exist spanning several decades. A valuable amount of climatic information exists in the time-series of interarrival times (IT), defined as the succession of times (number of days) elapsed from a rainy (or snowy) day to the one immediately preceding it.In a previous work, Agnese et al. (2014) have been successfully tested some probabilistic modelling of rain occurrence on Sicily rainfall data; particularly, the better fitting of IT’s observed frequencies was obtained by 3-parameter Lerch-series distribution. In this work thisdistribution is tested on 70 years of 20 precipitation time-series taken in the North-West Italy, both in the plain and in the mountains, up to the 2000 meters altitude. In such Mediterranean climatetwo markedly different behaviours were observed in the dry semester (April to September) and in the wet one (October to March). A better fit was obtained with that simple subdivision of the year, in comparison with the whole year modelling. However, the NW Italy climate is both more similar to the Central Europe one, and it is deeply influenced by the higher peaks of the Alps. Therefore the seasonality of daily precipitation data is much more complicated. Usually spring and fall are the seasons characterized by the higher precipitations, but the convective vs. frontal events also play a role in the IT distributions. In this work, different subdivisions were compared with the whole year fitting. The whole year Lerch distributions successfully fitted the data in a part of the time series, opening the way to interesting climate applications

Variations of Lys Glacier (Monte Rosa Massif, Italy) from the Little Ice Age to the Present from Historical and Remote Sensing Datasets

Alpine glaciers respond to climate imbalance by adjusting their mass and length. In turn, these changes modify the glacial and periglacial environment, leading to increased supraglacial debris cover, the development of glacial lakes and glacier fragmentation. In this research, we investigated the evolution of Lys Glacier (Monte Rosa Group), by studying length, area and volume changes, and evolution of its supraglacial debris cover and proglacial lakes by means of historical sources and high-resolution aerial and satellite orthophotos. Lys Glacier retreated almost continuously, by nearly 2 km, from its maximum Little Ice Age position. More recently, the glacier lost 11.91% of its area between 1975 and 2014 and underwent fragmentation in 2009. Over the same period, glacier fragmentation and tongue stagnation affected the formation and rapid growth of a series of ice-contact lakes and led to a non-linear debris cover evolution. The glacier was also subjected to strong volume losses, with more than 135 m thinning on the ablation tongue from 1991 to 2014. Analysis of the meteorological records (1927–present) from the closest weather station reveals a considerable increase in average annual temperatures by more than 1°C from the mean of 1971–1989 to the mean of 1990–2017

Ricostruzione del clima medioevale nelle Alpi occidentali tramite fonti archivistiche. Il progetto Archlim

Un échantillon significatif de sources d’archives publiées sur la période 800-1400 dans une région centrée sur les Alpes occidentales a été fouillé à la recherche de citations d’événements climatiques, grâce au soutien financier de la Compagnia di San Paolo de Turin (Projet Archlim). Environ 900 événements de froid intense, canicules, chutes de neige, tempêtes, inondations, sécheresses, conditions des cols alpins, dont 650 concernant les Alpes occidentales, ont été récensés et numerisés. Ce materiel a été validé et analysé aux moyens d’indices d’anomalie. Les résultats ramènent a des plus justes proportions la période chaude médiévale (Medieval Warm Period -MWP), auparavant considerée très douce et sans anomalies thermiques négatives, caractérisée au contraire par de fréquents épisodes froids (88 % des données) et par un important enneigement des cols alpins.Mercalli Luca, Cat Berro Daniele. Ricostruzione del clima medioevale nelle Alpi occidentali tramite fonti archivistiche. Il progetto Archlim. In: La Gazette des archives, n°230, 2013-2. Les sources d’archives pour l’étude du climat et de l’environnement. pp. 67-77

Railway related impacts: The Turin-Lyon high-speed rail case

One of the best known cases of struggle for the commons in Italy, characterized by bitter controversies over the last 20 years, is the popular opposition to the construction of the High Speed Railway line (HSR, "TAV" in Italian) between Turin and Lyon, designed to cross the Susa Valley (at the Italian-French border) and the Alps. This HSR project still carries, in spite of twenty years of continuous updating and reworking, a great deal of unsolved environmental and economic issues. An issue of insufficient cost-benefit balance has recently come to clear evidence, especially in view of the non-negligible passenger and freight traffic decrease along the Turin-Lyon direction. The most important aspects dealing with economic costs and claimed benefits, energetic considerations, legal constraints, environmental impact, health impact potential, and the negative experience of other projects, are discussed

The Turın-Lyon Hıgh-Speed Raıl: A Technıcal Assessment

One of the best known cases of struggle for the commons in Italy, characterized by bitter controversies over the last 20 years, is the popular opposition to the construction of the High Speed Railway line between Turin and Lyon, designed to cross the Susa Valley (at the Italian-French border) and the Alps. This HSR project still carries, in spite of twenty years of continuous updating and reworking, a great deal of unsolved environmental and economic issues. The Susa Valley, situated between Maurienne, France and Turin, Italy, has been urbanized by the economic development of the region. The construction of infrastructures like the Frejus highway, the international railway, and a large number of dams, tunnels and industries, has generated significant environmental and social impacts. The proposed high-speed railway (HSR) line (Treno Alta Velocità in Italian, or TAV) between Turin and Lyon would pass cross the Susa Valley, via 2 main tunnels and several shorter ones across the Alps. Main pollution problems dealing with the railway construction have been put into evidence by several studies and official reports. Moreover, the insufficient cost-benefit balance, especially in view of the significant passenger and freight traffic decrease along the Turin-Lyon direction is a fact: the huge amount of public money invested or planned in support of such development does not appear to be justified by sufficient economic benefits associated to the investment. In other words, not only a sequestration and degradation of the environment is going to take place, but also there is no advantage at all in economic terms. The usual appeal to the Precautionary Principle in the case of HSR project is not even necessary. Economic data, energetic considerations, legal questions, environmental impact, the health impact potential, the negative experience of other projects suggest that the High-Speed Train Turin-Lyon is not an actual priority for Italy and Europe, and its construction should be immediately stopped. The most important aspects dealing with economic costs and claimed benefits, energetic considerations, legal constraints, environmental impact, health impact potential, and the negative experience of other projects, are discussed

Perché NO TAV

Analisi dei flussi mercantili attraverso la frontiera tra Italia e Francia. Stima della credibilità di sostanziali incrementi futuri delle tonnellate trasportate. Discussione delle aspettative riguardo al riparto modale tra trasporto su strada e su ferrovia. Valutazione della domanda di trasporto passeggeri sulla direttrice Torino-Lione