Francesco Marra wins the Jim Dooge Award for research on sub-hourly precipitation extremes

12.05.2025

The European Geosciences Union has awarded Francesco Marra, researcher at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua, the Jim Dooge Award 2024 for the best article published during the year in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). The award was presented during the EGU General Assembly in Vienna.

The study, co-authored with Marika Koukoula, Antonio Canale and Nadav Peleg, introduces a new physically based statistical model to estimate how extreme sub-hourly precipitation may intensify with rising temperatures. The model, called TENAX, was tested using data from Switzerland and aims to improve the reliability of local-scale climate projections, with potential applications in hydrogeological risk management.

Predicting extreme sub-hourly precipitation intensification based on temperature shifts - Paper on Hydrology and Earth System

Named after hydrology pioneer Jim Dooge, the award recognizes outstanding contributions to research on the water cycle and complex environmental systems.

A video explaining the research is available on YouTube, where Francesco Marra illustrates the key concepts and results of the study.