Summary                                                                        (home)

I am interested in understanding the Earth's climate system and, in particular, how it will evolve with increased greeenhouse gas forcing. Under this broad and rather complex subject, I have two primary topics of interest: developing innovative ideas for improving our climate system models, and quantifying the regional environmental threats that will cascade from continued greenhouse gas emissions.

Developing innovative ideas for climate system modeling has been the focus of my research over the last decade or so. I have always been (and continue to be!) fascinated with the notion of modeling physical systems on computers. Numerical models offer exceptional and often unique opportunities to explore, understand, and explain the dynamics our highly-complex climate system.

Quantifying the regional environmental threats that will cascade from increasing greenhouse gas emissions is an emerging field of science. Greenhouse gas emissions have significantly altered the energy balance of the climate system. The climate system will most likely continue to adjust globally with increasing globally-averaged temperature, and regionally with changes in the strength of extreme events, such as drought, hurricanes, heat waves, and severe storms. These extreme events will have a profound impact on society by stressing the infrastructure that society depends on.

A key component of the Los Alamos National Laboratory mission is energy security. One part of energy security is finding energy solutions to replace fossil fuels. Equally important to energy security is understanding the environmental risks that accompany each energy solution. At its core, my research is to understand the consequences of our energy choices.