No abstract

Notwithstanding its small size (less than 10000 km 2), because of its varied topography, ranging from the Apennines Range (up to more than 2000 m amsl) to coastal environments, the Marche Region (the Adriatic side of Central Italy), is characterized by many different types of climate. In this region there are no fully satisfactory models to interpolate and generalize rainfall data from the 111available meteorological recording stations; however, in this study an innovative way to interpret data linking precipitation to many topographic parameters is introduced. Based on those considerations, statistical analyses were carried out on rainfall historical series in order to assess significantly variations during the last 60 years and to create a model capable of explaining rainfall distribution based on geographical and topographic parameters. Thus on one hand was highlighted a significant decrease of rainfall from 1961-1990 to 1991-2016, over the whole period, in the hilly and mountainous sectors (100-200 mm), while closer to the coast the difference is slight (about 0-100 mm), on the other the new model highlights the presence of some outliers, which may lead to a better comprehension of climatic dynamics in this area

No abstract

Between the end of January and mid February 2012, the Italian peninsula has been subject to the inf uence of many advections of arctic-continental air generating a series of cyclogenesis over the central Mediterranean Sea. This caused widely spread mainly snowy precipitation, often persistent, mostly affecting the centralsouthern Regions, as well as Rome and Naples. Snowfalls and low temperatures caused some sixty casualties, besides huge damage to economic and productive facilities. The analysis of a large number of nivometric monitoring points, belonging to different institutions (Meteomont, Military Aviation, Civil Protection and Universities) allowed evaluating the spatial distribution of total snowfall. Comparing these f gures with those referring to past perturbation phases similar in length -recorded in the winter of 1929, 1956, 1985 and 2005 -demonstrates that the 2012 event can be considered exceptional being characterized by a higher total thickness of snow cover almost everywhere along the hills and low mountains of the Adriatic side of Central Italy.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the most severe global health and socioeconomic crisis of our time, and represents the greatest challenge faced by the world since the end of the Second World War. The academic literature indicates that climatic features, specifically temperature and absolute humidity, are very important factors affecting infectious pulmonary disease epidemics - such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS); however, the influence of climatic parameters on COVID-19 remains extremely controversial. The goal of this study is to individuate relationships between several climate parameters (temperature, relative humidity, accumulated precipitation, solar radiation, evaporation, and wind direction and intensity), local morphological parameters, and new daily positive swabs for COVID-19, which represents the only parameter that can be statistically used to quantify the pandemic. The daily deaths parameter was not considered, because it is not reliable, due to frequent administrative errors. Daily data on meteorological conditions and new cases of COVID-19 were collected for the Lombardy Region (Northern Italy) from 1 March, 2020 to 20 April, 2020. This region exhibited the largest rate of official deaths in the world, with a value of approximately 1700 per million on 30 June 2020. Moreover, the apparent lethality was approximately 17% in this area, mainly due to the considerable housing density and the extensive presence of industrial and craft areas. Both the Mann–Kendall test and multivariate statistical analysis showed that none of the considered climatic variables exhibited statistically significant relationships with the epidemiological evolution of COVID-19, at least during spring months in temperate subcontinental climate areas, with the exception of solar radiation, which was directly related and showed an otherwise low explained variability of approximately 20%. Furthermore, the average temperatures of two highly representative meteorological stations of Molise and Lucania (Southern Italy), the most weakly affected by the pandemic, were approximately 1.5 °C lower than those in Bergamo and Brescia (Lombardy), again confirming that a significant relationship between the increase in temperature and decrease in virulence from COVID-19 is not evident, at least in Italy.