Climate

A new interdisciplinary grant from the Collaborations in Mathematical Geosciences (CMG) Program of the National Science Foundation will include research on a wide range of current statistical problems in the atmospheric sciences. This grant is joint between the Departments of Statistics and Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M, and includes Marc Genton, Bani Malleck, and Mikyoung Jun from Statistics, and Kenneth Bowman, Saravanan, and Gerald North from Atmospheric Sciences.

Observation and Simulation of Precipitation

Amplitude and phase of the diurnal cycle estimated from TRMM data.

Kenneth Bowman and Gerald North are using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to study the role of tropical precipitation in climate and to test climate models. Courtney Schumacher is using data from the TRMM Precipitation Radar to study interannual variability of precipitation in the tropics.

Climate feedbacks

Andrew Dessler uses data from NASA's A-train satellites (Aqua, Aura, CALIPSO, and CloudSat) as well as analysis of general circulation models to better understand feedbacks in the climate system. Our primary areas of study are those from water vapor and clouds. Together, these are responsible for much of the predicted temperature increase from anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.

Tropical Air-Sea Interaction

Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic showing Tropical Instability Waves on 2007-07-23.

Kenneth Bowman is working with Qiaoyan Wu, R. Saravanan, and Ping Chang using data and models to study interactions between oceanic Tropical Instability Waves and the tropical atmosphere.

Surface Temperature Report

Summary of surface temperature trends over the last 1000 years.

Distinguished Professor Gerald North chaired a committee of the National Academy of Sciences to review the quality and reliability of proxy temperature records from the last 2000 years.

Coupled Modeling of Climate Variability and Predictability

Schematic of Local and Remote Interactions in Tropical Atlantic Variability.

R. Saravanan works with Ping Chang (in the Oceanography Department) to study and model phenomena that involve interactions between different components of the climate system. We use a hierarchy of numerical models, ranging from simple 2-dimensional models to comprehensive 3-dimensional general circulation models, to study phenomena such as the Tropical Pacific El Niño and Tropical Atlantic Variability.