Climate Modeling and Data Assimilation

Increased scientific knowledge of climate variability can reduce the vulnerabilities of human and ecological systems to major environmental changes. Major economic losses occur annually from events such as drought, floods, and heat waves. Understanding of changes in temperature and precipitation patterns and their impacts on crops, forests, and human pathogens will enable society to be better prepared to cope with potentially costly future changes in climate on time scales of decades to centuries.

Climate research at the University of Colorado is driven by the goals and broad objectives that have been articulated by the World Climate Research Programme and the US Global Change Research Programme which are to develop the fundamental scientific understanding of the climate system and climate processes that is needed to determine to which extent climate can be predicted and the extent of man's influence on climate. The programme encompasses studies of the global atmosphere, oceans, sea and land ice, and the land surface as well as their coupling. In order to achieve these goals the broad objectives are:

• To design and implement observational and diagnostic research activities that will lead to a quantitative understanding of significant climate processes including: the transport and storage of heat by the ocean, the exchange of heat, moisture and momentum between atmosphere, ocean and sea-ice, and the interaction among cloudiness, radiation, the land-surface and the global hydrological cycle;
  
• To develop global and regional models capable of simulating the present climate and, to the extent possible, of predicting climate variations on a wide range of space- and time- scales.

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) is known internationally for its interdisciplinary research on a variety of global change issues. Working closely with Boulder-based federal research laboratories, CU research centers such as the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics have successfully brought together a variety of academic disciplines to work on global change issues, which cross traditional disciplinary and departmental lines. On the policy side, the Natural Resources Law Center and the Environmental Policy Program have brought together lawyers, economists, historians, and political scientists to study global change and other environmental issues. Unique interdisciplinary education programs in climate change are being developed at the University of Colorado through a partnership of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the Environmental Studies Program, overcoming the disciplinary and departmental barriers that exist in many university programs. The program at the University of Colorado proves a unique combination of disciplinary depth and inter- and multi-disciplinary breadth necessary for students who plan to work in this area.

Current Research

• Polar Climate: Barry, Cassano, Steffen, Maslanik
• Polar Regional Climate Modeling: Cassano
• World Data Center for Glaciology: Barry
• Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research
• Program in Arctic Regional Climate Assessment: Steffen
• Sea Ice Remote Sensing: Emery, Maslanik
• Sea Ice Modeling: Maslanik
• Land/Atmosphere Interactions: Blanken, Bonan, Cassano
• Land Surface Model : Bonan
• Boreal Forest Dynamics Model : Bonan
• Land-Atmosphere CO2 Exchange : Bonan
• Paleoclimate: Andrews
• Past Global Change Group / INSTAAR
• Impact of Clouds and Aerosols on Climate: Toon
• Aerosol Modeling Research Group Home Pages: Toon
• Global Climate Modeling: Noone

Faculty

• John Andrews
• Roger Barry
• David Blanken
• Gordon Bonan
• John Cassano
• John Fasullo
• James Maslanik
• David Noone
• Konrad Steffen
• Brian Toon
• Tomislava Vukicevic

Local Resources

• NCAR Climate and Global Dynamics Division