Sonia I Seneviratne

Biographic Data

ID3599816
NAMESonia I Seneviratne
GIVEN NAMESSonia I
FAMILY NAMESeneviratne
SIGNATURESENEVIRATNE S I
AFFILIATIONSETH Zurich
ORCID0000-0001-9528-2917
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS47
TOTAL CITATIONS2
AUTHOR COUNT47
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2006
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX1

  • Recent climate impacts on run-of-river hydropower and electricity systems planning in Switzerland

    Open AccessYann Yasser Haddad, Lukas Gudmundsson et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2025

    The transition towards renewable energies together with climate change is rendering electricity systems more vulnerable to climate conditions and trends. This study examines the impacts of recent climate change and variability on run-of-river (RoR) hydropower production and electricity systems planning. We present an end-to-end pipeline to convert runoff and hydropower specifications into hydropower generation and subsequently integrate it into a…

  • Climate damage projections beyond annual temperature

    Open AccessPaul Waidelich, Fulden Batibeniz et al.ARTICLENature Climate Change2024

    Estimates of global economic damage from climate change assess the effect of annual temperature changes. However, the roles of precipitation, temperature variability and extreme events are not yet known. Here, by combining projections of climate models with empirical dose–response functions translating shifts in temperature means and variability, rainfall patterns and extreme precipitation into economic damage, we show that at +3 ° C global avera…

  • Combining climate models and observations to predict the time remaining until regional warming thresholds are reached

    Open AccessElizabeth A Barnes, Noah S Diffenbaugh et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2024

    The importance of climate change for driving adverse climate impacts has motivated substantial effort to understand the rate and magnitude of regional climate change in different parts of the world. However, despite decades of research, there is substantial uncertainty in the time remaining until specific regional temperature thresholds are reached, with climate models often disagreeing both on the warming that has occurred to-date, as well as th…

  • Future changes in spatially compounding hot, wet or dry events and their implications for the world’s breadbasket regions

    Open AccessBianca Biess, Lukas Gudmundsson et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2024

    Recent years were characterized by an increase in spatially co-occurring hot, wet or dry extreme events around the globe. In this study we analyze data from multi-model climate projections to analyze the occurrence of spatially compounding events and area affected in future climates under scenarios at +1.5 ∘ C, +2.0 ∘ C, +3.0 ∘ C and higher levels of global warming using Earth System Model simulations from the 6th Phase of the Coupled Model Inter…

  • Climate policies for carbon neutrality should not rely on the uncertain increase of carbon stocks in existing forests

    Open AccessCaspar T J Roebroek, L Caporaso et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2024

    The international community, through treaties such as the Paris agreement, aims to limit climate change to well below 2 °C, which implies reaching carbon neutrality around the second half of the century. In the current calculations underpinning the various roadmaps toward carbon neutrality, a major component is a steady or even expanding terrestrial carbon sink, supported by an increase of global forest biomass. However, recent research has chall…

  • The footprint of human-induced climate change on heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022 in Switzerland

    Open AccessAna M Vicedo‐Cabrera, Evan de Schrijver et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2023

    Human-induced climate change is leading to an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, which are severely affecting the health of the population. The exceptional heat during the summer of 2022 in Europe is an example, with record-breaking temperatures only below the infamous 2003 summer. High ambient temperatures are associated with many health outcomes, including premature mortality. However, there is limited quantitati…

  • A compound event-oriented framework to tropical fire risk assessment in a changing climate

    Open AccessAndreia Ribeiro, Andreia F S Ribeiro et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    Tropical fire activity closely follows the co-occurrence of multiple climate stressors. Yet, it remains challenging to quantify how changes in climate alter the likelihood of fire risks associated with compound events. Recent abrupt changes in fire regimes in iconic landscapes in Brazil (namely the Pantanal and Xingu) provide a key opportunity to evaluate how extremely dry and hot conditions, both together and individually, have influenced the pr…

  • The role of urban trees in reducing land surface temperatures in European cities

    Open AccessJonas Schwaab, Ronny Meier et al.ARTICLENature Communications2021

    Urban trees influence temperatures in cities. However, their effectiveness at mitigating urban heat in different climatic contexts and in comparison to treeless urban green spaces has not yet been sufficiently explored. Here, we use high-resolution satellite land surface temperatures (LSTs) and land-cover data from 293 European cities to infer the potential of urban trees to reduce LSTs. We show that urban trees exhibit lower temperatures than ur…

  • Hot weather and heat extremes

    Open AccessKristie L Ebi, Anthony Capon et al.ARTICLEThe Lancet2021

  • Intergenerational inequities in exposure to climate extremes

    Open AccessWim Thiery, Stefan Lange et al.ARTICLEScience2021

    Young generations are severely threatened by climate change

  • Reducing the health effects of hot weather and heat extremes

    Open AccessOllie Jay, Anthony Capon et al.ARTICLEThe Lancet2021

  • A framework for complex climate change risk assessment

    Open AccessNicholas Philip Simpson, Katharine J Mach et al.ARTICLEOne Earth2021

    Real-world experience underscores the complexity of interactions among multiple drivers of climate change risk and of how multiple risks compound or cascade. However, a holistic framework for assessing such complex climate change risks has not yet been achieved. Clarity is needed regarding the interactions that generate risk, including the role of adaptation and mitigation responses. In this perspective, we present a framework for three categorie…

  • Pathways of climate resilience over the 21st century

    Open AccessCarl‐Friedrich Schleussner, Peter Pfleiderer et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    The impacts of climate change are affecting human societies today. In parallel, socio-economic development has increased the capacity of countries around the global to adapt to those impacts although substantial challenges remain. Ongoing climate change will continue to result in a pressure to adapt, while socio-economic development could make it easier to do so. Countries’ effectiveness in fostering climate resilience will depend on the pace of …

  • Human contribution to the record-breaking June and July 2019 heatwaves in Western Europe

    Open AccessRobert Vautard, Marcel Van Aalst et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    Two extreme heatwaves hit Western Europe in the summer of 2019, with historical records broken by more than a degree in many locations, and significant societal impacts, including excess mortality of several thousand people. The extent to which human influence has played a role in the occurrence of these events has been of large interest to scientists, media and decision makers. However, the outstanding nature of these events poses challenges for…

  • Projected changes in hot, dry and wet extreme events’ clusters in CMIP6 multi-model ensemble

    Open AccessMartha M Vogel, Michael Hauser et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    Concurrent extreme events, i.e. multi-variate extremes, can be associated with strong impacts. Hence, an understanding of how such events are changing in a warming climate is helpful to avoid some associated climate change impacts and better prepare for them. In this article, we analyse the projected occurrence of hot, dry, and wet extreme events’ clusters in the multi-model ensemble of the 6th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (…

  • The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C

    Open AccessOve Hoegh-Guldberg, Daniela Jacob et al.ARTICLEScience2019

    The need to stabilize global climate Climate change will be the greatest threat to humanity and global ecosystems in the coming years, and there is a pressing need to understand and communicate the impacts of warming, across the perspectives of the natural and social sciences. Hoegh-Guldberg et al. review the climate change–impact literature, expanding on the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They provide evidence of…

  • On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales

    Open AccessLisa V Alexander, Hayley J Fowler et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    While there are obstacles to the exchange of long-term high temporal resolution precipitation data, there have been fewer barriers to the exchange of so-called 'indices'. These are derived from daily and sub-daily data and measure aspects of precipitation frequency, duration and intensity that could be used for the study of extremes. This paper outlines the history of the rationale and use of these indices, the types of indices that are frequentl…

  • Coupling between the terrestrial carbon and water cycles—a review

    Open AccessPierre Gentine, Julia K Green et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    The terrestrial carbon and water cycles are strongly coupled. As atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases, climate and the coupled hydrologic cycle are modified, thus altering the terrestrial water cycle and the availability of soil moisture necessary for plants’ carbon dioxide uptake. Concomitantly, rising surface carbon dioxide concentrations also modify stomatal (small pores at the leaf surface) regulation as well as biomass, thus al…

  • Regional climate model projections underestimate future warming due to missing plant physiological CO 2 response

    Open AccessClemens Schwingshackl, Édouard L Davin et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    Many countries rely on regional climate model (RCM) projections to quantify the impacts of climate change and to design their adaptation plans accordingly. In several European regions, RCMs project a smaller temperature increase than global climate models (GCMs), which is hypothesised to be due to discrepant representations of topography, cloud processes, or aerosol forcing in RCMs and GCMs. Additionally, RCMs do generally not consider the vegeta…

  • Revisiting assessments of ecosystem drought recovery

    Open AccessLaibao Liu, Lukas Gudmundsson et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    The time taken for ecosystems to recover from drought (drought recovery time) is critically important for the ecosystem state. However, recent literature presents contradictory conclusions on this feature: one study concludes that drought recovery time in the tropics and high northern latitudes is shortest ( 12 months) in these regions. Here we explore the reasons for these contradictory results and revisit assessments of drought recovery time. W…

  • Intercomparison of daily precipitation persistence in multiple global observations and climate models

    Open AccessHeewon Moon, Lukas Gudmundsson et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    Daily precipitation persistence is affected by various atmospheric and land processes and provides complementary information to precipitation amount statistics for understanding the precipitation dynamics. In this study, daily precipitation persistence is assessed in an exhaustive ensemble of observation-based daily precipitation datasets and evaluated in global climate model (GCM) simulations for the period of 2001–2013. Daily precipitation time…

  • The concerns of the young protesters are justified

    Open AccessGregor Hagedorn, Thomas Loew et al.ARTICLEGAIA - Ecological Perspectives…2019

    In March 2019, German-speaking scientists and scholars calling themselves Scientists for Future , published a statement in support of the youth protesters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Fridays for Future, Klimastreik/Climate Strike) , verifying the scientific evidence that the youth protestors refer to. In this article, they provide the full text of the statement, including the list of supporting facts (in both English and German) as well…

  • Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty

    Open AccessCarl‐Friedrich Schleussner, Delphine Deryng et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2018

    Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement, there has been an increasing interest in quantifying impacts at discrete levels of global mean temperature (GMT) increase such as 1.5 C and 2 C above pre-industrial levels. Consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural productivity have direct and immediate relevance for human societies. Future crop yields will be affected by anthropogenic climate change as well as direct eff…

  • Evapotranspiration simulations in Isimip2a—Evaluation of spatio-temporal characteristics with a comprehensive ensemble of independent datasets

    Open AccessRichard Wartenburger, Sonia I Seneviratne et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2018

    Actual land evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the global hydrological cycle and an essential variable determining the evolution of hydrological extreme events under different climate change scenarios. However, recently available ET products show persistent uncertainties that are impeding a precise attribution of human-induced climate change. Here, we aim at comparing a range of independent global monthly land ET estimates with histori…

  • Changes in climate extremes over West and Central Africa at 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming

    Open AccessArona Diédhiou, Adéline Bichet et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2018

    In this study, we investigate changes in temperature and precipitation extremes over West and Central Africa (hereafter, WAF domain) as a function of global mean temperature with a focus on the implications of global warming of 1.5 C and 2 C according the Paris Agreement. We applied a scaling approach to capture changes in climate extremes with increase in global mean temperature in several subregions within the WAF domain: Western Sahel, Central…