The Mediterranean “Climate Change Hotspot”

Speaker
Filippo Giorgi

May 28, 2026 – 10:00 a.m.

CNR-ISMed, Conference Hall, CNR Humanities Centre (6th floor)
Via Cardinale Guglielmo Sanfelice 8
Naples

Remote access on the Teams platform

Poster

Press release

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the CNR and the Institute of Mediterranean Studies are pleased to host a seminar by Professor Filippo Giorgi, an internationally renowned expert in climate modelling and climate change, whose name features on the list of the most cited scientific authors in the field of Earth sciences. From 2002 to 2008, he served as Deputy Chair of IPCC Working Group I, which, in 2007, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. In an article in GRL (2006), he introduced the concept of “Climate Change Hot-Spots“, i.e. areas of the globe particularly sensitive to global warming, and identified the Mediterranean region as one of the planet’s main Hot-Spots.

In this seminar, he will present an overview of what observations and models tell us about climate change in the Mediterranean during the 20th and 21st centuries.

THE SPEAKER. Filippo Giorgi was born in Sulmona (AQ) in 1959. He obtained a degree in Physics from the University of L’Aquila in 1982 and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from the School of Geophysical Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, in 1986.

From 1986 to 1998, he was a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, USA, one of the leading international climate research centres. In 1998, he moved to the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, where he headed the Earth Physics Section from 1998 to 2024. Since 2024, he has been Professor Emeritus at the ICTP.

Giorgi is an internationally recognised expert in climate modelling, climate change and its effects on the planet and society, interactions between climate and the biosphere, and interactions between climate and aerosols. He is the author of over 420 articles in international scientific journals and is included in the list of the most cited scientific authors in the field of Earth sciences for 2001, 2022, 2023 and 2025. In 2025, a study by Stanford University ranked him eighth (out of 79,651) on the list of the most influential international scientists in the field of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics. He has contributed to the drafting of climate change reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since the 1990s. From 2002 to 2008, he served as Deputy Chair of IPCC Working Group I, which, in 2007, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Giorgi sits on numerous international scientific committees and, among his honours, counts the Alexander von Humboldt Medal from the European Geosciences Union (EGU), awarded in 2018 in recognition of his scientific excellence and his contribution to scientific progress in developing countries. Giorgi has been a corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei since 2024 and of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti since 2022.

PROGRAMME

INSTITUTIONAL GREETINGS

Salvatore Capasso
Director of the Department of Human and Social Sciences, Cultural Heritage of the CNR
(CNR-DSU)

Gabriella Corona
Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the National Research Council
(CNR-ISMed)

SPEAKER

Filippo Giorgi
Climatologist
Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)

FINAL DISCUSSION

ORGANISED BY
CNR-ISMed and CNR-DSU

HOW TO ATTEND
The event is open to the public, subject to availability
You can participate at the following remote access on the Teams platform

INFO AND CONTACT DETAILS
CNR-ISMed
segreteria.direzione@ismed.cnr.it
www.ismed.cnr.it