Research - Our Team

Desislava Petrova is a co-chair of the Climate and Planetary Change Hub at ISGlobal. Her research focuses on climate dynamics, predictability and change. She holds a PhD degree in Climate Dynamics from the University of Barcelona, a research Master’s degree in Science of Natural Hazards from the University of Bristol in UK, and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Whittier College in California. Her main area of expertise is climate predictability at sub-seasonal to seasonal, inter-annual and decadal timescales, and particularly the predictability of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During her PhD period, she developed a novel ENSO prediction model, specifically tailored to the long-lead predictions of this important climatic phenomenon.

Petrova is also interested in how climate forecasts can be incorporated within health and other impact models to increase their predictive lead time, and to develop useful climate services in help of vulnerable communities and decision-makers. She has participated in the development of prototypes of climate-driven early warning systems for dengue in Ecuador, as well as for temperature-related mortality on a pan-European scale. She has also been involved in research on climate teleconnections, variability and change, and specifically on quantifying and unraveling the dynamical sources of uncertainty of future rainfall projections in Mediterranean types of climates (especially in California and the Mediterranean region).

She is currently involved in a European project dedicated to climate and biodiversity tipping points (TipESM), and her work is concentrated on tipping scenarios for the Amazon rain-forest, including ENSO-driven changes in the region. She has a number of publications in high-impact journals on all of these topics.

Lines of research

• El Niño Southern Oscillation variability, predictability and change.
• Climate dynamics, predictability and change.
• Climate impact models and climate services for health.

Main publications

• Ivana Cvijanovic, Amelie Simon, Xavier Levine, Rachel White Pablo Ortega, Markus Donat, Donald D. Lucas, John C. H. Chiang, Anne Seidenglanz, Dragana Bojovic, Arthur Ramos Amaral, Vladimir Lapin, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Desislava Petrova, Arctic sea-ice loss drives a strong regional atmospheric response over the North Pacific and North Atlantic on decadal scales, Communications Earth and Environment, 6, no. 1 (2025): 154.
• Desislava Petrova, Xavier Rodo, Siem Jan Koopman, Vassil Tzanov, Ivana Cvijanovic. The 2023/24 El Nino and the Feasibility of Long-Lead ENSO Forecasting, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 105, no. 10 (2024): E1915-E1928.
• Desislava Petrova, Patricia Tarin-Carrasco, Aleksandar Sekulic, Jelena, Lukovic, Maria Gali Reniu, Xavier Rodo, Ivana Cvijanovic. Future precipitation changes in California: comparison of CMIP5 and CMIP6 intermodel spread and its drivers, International Journal of Climatology, Special Issue: The Climate of the Mediterranean Region at Multiple Time and Spatial Scales (2024), 44(7), pp.2207-2229.
• Desislava Petrova, Joan Ballester, Siem Jan Koopman, Xavier Rodo. Multi-year statistical prediction of ENSO enhanced by the tropical Pacific observing system, Journal of Climate 33.1 (2020): 163-174.
• Desislava Petrova, Rachel Lowe, Anna Stewart-Ibarra, Joan Ballester, Siem Jan Koopman, Xavier Rodo. Sensitivity of large dengue epidemics in Ecuador to long-lead predictions of El Nino, Climate Services, 15 (2019): 100096.
• Marcos Quijal-Zamorano, Desislava Petrova, Erica Martinez-Solanas, Francois R. Herrmann, Xavier Rodo, Jean-Marie Robine, Hicham Achebak, Joan Ballester. Forecast skill assessment of an operational continental heat-cold-health forecasting system: New avenues for health early warning systems., Science Advances 10, no. 46 (2024): eado5286.