Professor of Climate Dynamics

Past President of ICDM

      I was a postdoctoral scholar at NCAR and at CIRES before moving to Davis in January 1982. I've had four sabbaticals: BMRC (Melbourne Australia), twice at NCAR, and at LASG (Beijing China).

      My scientific work bridges these broad disciplinary categories:

1. climate model analysis & use,
2. theoretical dynamics (e.g. instability),
3. synoptics (including statistical analyis), and
4. weather forecasting & numerical prediction.

      I seek to understand whatever problem I am studying from multiple directions.   My areas of focus have been frontal cyclones, subtropical highs, the atmosphere's global scale circulations, climate change, and weather predition.

My official departmental web page is here. More personal information can be found here.

I taught severe and unusual weather, computer methods, general circulation, weather forecasting and synoptic meteorology, advanced dynamics, and 8 other subjects as needed by the group.

9 graduate students (4 women, 5 men) completed their degrees under my guidance. (2 more are in progress)  

Permanent job options specifically in dynamics are quite limited, but general computer and modeling skills remain broadly employable. (Atmospheric Sciences has better employment prospects than most sciences.)

Beyond my regular faculty duties, I own a small organic farm 4 miles from Davis. Our main crop is pistachios. Recently, we installed a 4kW solar PV system that provides about 75% of the electrical usage in the house and rental unit. My twin daughters, Anna & Karen, born in April 1997, keep my wife and me very busy.

I lived in Australia for a year and I have visited 6 continents ( I've not yet visited Antarctica).

My current research includes:

• certain types of extreme weather (occurring <2% of the time) that our research has shown to be linked to specific very large scale patterns. California Cenral Valley examples are: hottest temperatures, cold air outbreaks, heaviest precipitation, and strong north winds. A link to our EWE page is here We are applying that knowledge several ways, such as:
  1. to analyze what large scale patterns occur and how they develop and evolve dynamically
  2. to analyze climate model performance by assessing whether the model develops such events with proper timing, strength, etc.
  3. to assessing how extreme weather is likely to change over this century.
  4. to assess possible impacts on agricultural sectors by changes to extreme weather in future climate
  
        I am applying various tools to identify, assess, and understand various extreme weather. I use extreme value statistics as well as standard statistics to identify key features. I use advanced dynamical tools coupled with synoptic analysis to investigate and understand how the weather patterns are created that result in extreme events. This multi-pronged approach provides a statistical and synoptic-dynamic foundation for assessing climate model simulations of extreme events. Such an assessment is needed before one can interpret future trends in extreme events. As an example, my early work showed that a widely-used global climate model underpredicts California heat wave frequency of occurrence (but not necessarily the magnitude).
       
• the growth of climate model bias using linear and nonlinear theoretical tools, including a focus upon the Northern Hemisphere middle and high latitudes. We focussed on the NCAR CCSM & CAM. Some further information is here
       
• extensively investigating the subtropical highs (including the one which strongly influences our weather in California); this work has had primarily observational and modeling components. Some further information is here
       
• A page with links to some of my recent papers is here

UCAR members meeting Oct. 1999

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