The PhD defence and trial lecture are fully digital and streamed using Zoom. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation. A limited number of seats are available in auditorium 1.
Trial lecture
Causes and effects of current and future heatwaves over Nordic regions
Conferral summary (in Norwegian)
Mengde vann i norske kraftmagasiner og vårflommer og temperaturen vi opplever er prisgitt vann- og energibalansen på bakken. I avhandlingen belyses hvordan endringer på bakkenivå påvirker atmosfæren over, og omvendt. Ved bruk av en regional klimamodell finner vi at årlig avrenning i Sør-Norge er sensitiv for endringer av sjø-overflatetemperaturen eller hvor tregrensen går. Videre presenteres et høy-oppløst strålings- og fuktighets-datasett for Norge med atmosfæriske variabler som inngår i bakkens vann- og energibalanse. En studie av Norges vannbalanse der stråling og fuktighet benyttes som inngangsdata i en videreutviklet hydrologisk modell, viser at det er usikkerhet i eksisterende estimater for normal nedbør og fordampning.
Main research findings
Popular scientific article about Erlandsen’s dissertation:
Perturbing and constraining Norway's surface water and energy balance
This summer extreme flooding events and wildfires took place worldwide. The interplay of the land surface and atmosphere has been studied for a thousand years.
Yet, we are still unsure about how changes on the land surface impact the atmosphere and vice versa. Further, present-day models of surface and near-surface variables rely on simplifications. This thesis takes on these issues in three studies, by combining novel model experiments and observational data.
In one study we conducted experiments in a regional climate model centered on South Norway. We perturbed surface features, either forest extent, snow cover, or sea surface temperature (SST). Annual precipitation and runoff were sensitive to both forest extent and SST changes. Another study considers two drivers of the land surface: near-surface humidity and incident radiation. It presents a new method producing a high-resolution data-set of these variables. Exciting estimates and the new data-set were compared with observational data. A limited number of seats are available in auditorium 1.
The new data-set was exploited in a third study. In a gridded hydrological model we allowed snowmelt and evaporation to also react to humidity and radiation. Comparison with previous studies showed uncertainty about Norway's average annual precipitation and evaporation.
Photo and other information:
Press photo: Helene Birkelund Erlandsen, portrait; 500px. Photo: Private
Other photo material: Figure with description and credit as specified in the article above, size 1000px.
