Hosts: Emanuele Gentile, Wengui Liang, and Ming Zhao

This student project explores the influence of various identification methods on the detection of potential anthropogenic climate change signals in both Northern and Southern Hemisphere extra-tropical cyclone activity and associated weather extremes. To investigate this, we utilize a GFDL present-day and future idealized warming climate simulation as our standard input and employ two different identification and tracking methods for mid-latitude cyclones. The work may involve as a first step applying and comparing two trackers (TempestExtremes and Hodges' tracker) to better understand the sensitivity of extra-tropical cyclones to details in tracking schemes in present-day simulations and/or ERA-50 reanalysis data (1960-2020). Additionally, the project includes the analysis of extra-tropical cyclone-associated winds and precipitation, as well as an examination of simulations representing a warmer climate. The intern student can stop at any step depending on their ability. Successful completion of the first step, comparing the trackers, is already a significant achievement. Given that mid-latitude cyclones cause substantial financial losses and loss of life annually, the improved understanding of mid-latitude cyclone tracking gained through this project has the potential to make a positive impact on future studies exploring the anthropogenic warming climate signal on mid-latitude cyclones.