Erika Coppola received the Laurea degree in Physics (1998) from the University of L’Aquila and the PhD degree (2004) in Meteorology from the University of Reading, UK. She is currently a research scientist in the ICTP, ESP section, a position she has held since September 2006.
She is actively involved in regional climate modeling, where she leads the development of high-resolution models (convection-permitting) and coordinates hydrological model research activities, specifically focusing on the development of the CHyM hydrological model. Her work includes the coupling of the hydrological model with the regional climate model (RegCM) for land-use impact studies and assessing the impact of climate change on future water resources. Additionally, she participates in projects investigating the use of machine learning techniques as climate emulators for climate projections, climate risk assessment, and climate impact studies.
As a lead author, she contributed to the IPCC AR6 WGI, coordinating the assessment of regional climate information across all continents and contributing to the development of an updated IPCC risk assessment framework. Her current research focuses on assessing the impact of climate change on hazards at the regional scale through the use of regional climate models and hydroclimate models. Her interests include land-atmosphere interactions, monsoon climate, regional hydrological cycles, climate extremes, climate variability and change, and flood risk.
