Participating Faculty: Chang, Colle, French, Hameed, Kim, Liu, Reed, Wolfe

SoMAS has active research programs directed toward advancing the scientific community’s understanding of climate variability and predictability from subseasonal to decadal time scales, from ocean to atmosphere, and from regional scale to large-scale. A variety of observational, theoretical, and modeling strategies are used to explore the dynamics of weather and climate, towards improved understanding and predictions.

Global and regional climate variability and change

We study variabilities in the ocean-atmospheric systems from regional to global scale including atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems, ocean-atmosphere interaction (e.g., El Nino-Southern Oscillation), extreme events (e.g., storm track, hurricane) in response to the changing climate. We also study the climate of specific regions (e.g., rainfall in California, tropical storms affecting New York State) and determine how a variety of models best describe those regional climate fluctuations and their long-term trend.

Tropical meteorology

Tropical meteorology encompasses a diverse set of weather and climate processes occurring in the low latitudes, roughly between 30° north and south latitude. The weather and climate of the tropics involve phenomena such as trade winds, hurricanes, intertropical convergence zones, jet streams, monsoons, El Nino, and tropical intraseasonal oscillation (e.g., Madden Julian Oscillation). At SoMAS, we study these phenomena using observation and numerical models, and develop models to perform diagnostic studies and predict future changes.

Tropical/extratropical interaction

Deep convection in the tropics evolves together with the global atmospheric circulation through atmospheric teleconnection. At SoMAS, we study how the tropical subseasonal to decadal climate variability impacts on the extratropical phenomena such as change of the Hadley circulation and mid-latitude jet, tropical circulation and storm track, ENSO-atmospheric river, and so on.

Climate prediction

Climate prediction is a probabilistic statement about the future climate conditions on time scales ranging from weeks to decades and helps for longer-term decisions and early warning of potential hazards. At SoMAS, we study on the predictability of phenomena from tropics to extratropics on global to regional scale (e.g., storm track, hurricane, MJO, ENSO). We assess the predictability and predictions from various numerical model output and develop statistical approaches to improve the climate prediction.

Ocean circulation and modeling

The ocean stores heat and redistributes them via the large-scale circulation which affect and is affected by climate change through various feedback mechanisms. At SoMAS, we study the effect of ocean circulation on climate, large-scale ocean circulation, mesoscale eddies, and ocean modeling