MIT Center for Global Change Science
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Edward A. Boyle: Professor of Ocean Geochemistry, Department of Earth Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Professor Boyle is a marine geochemist involved in the study of the evolution of the Earth's climate, and the oceanic dispersal of anthropogenic emissions. He is interested in the areas of paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, and the chemistry of environmental waters. His research includes climatological studies of past ocean circulation patterns based on the fossil chemistry of oceanic sediments, control of late Pleistocene carbon dioxide pressure by ocean circulation and chemistry, and trace element variability in polar ice cores. He is also investigating the trace element chemistry of rivers and estuaries, and the chemical composition of seawater. In particular, he studies the variability of oceanic trace metals related to atmospheric transport of anthropogenic emissions and mineral dust, and the fate of atmospherically transported pollutant lead in the ocean, and is developing a proxy history of anthropogenic metal emissions into the Mediterranean Sea. Prof. Boyle has pioneered development of several new proxy tracers for paleoenvironmental processes, and was the first to provide a correct quantitative assessment of chemical changes in the deep ocean that occur during ice ages. He demonstrated that the deep ocean responded rapidly to changes in the surface climate during a brief thousand-year reversal of deglaciation, which occurred 11,000 years ago. He also developed a new model to account for the reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide during glacial times, which is a major factor in the genesis of glacial climate. He is using the fallout of industrial lead emissions to document the mechanisms of trace metal transport through the ocean, has helped determine a record of industrial lead and cadmium emissions into the western North Atlantic ocean for the past 100 years, and helped develop proxy tracers which document historical variations in the Pacific basin El Nino/Southern Oscillation climate fluctuations. Prof. Boyle has been a member of the working group on Earth System History and Modeling of the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Global Change, and a corresponding member of the Spectral Mapping Analysis of the Pleistocene Project. He has served on the International Council of Scientific Unions working groups on Deep Water Paleoceanography, Paleoenvironmental Evolution, and Ocean/Atmosphere Paleochemistry. (Ph.D., '76, MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; B.A., '71, University of California, San Diego) eaboyle@mit.edu
Jean-Michel Campin: Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Campin's research involves studying the role of the ocean in past climate variations using numerical models. His focus is the development and improvement of climate model components of the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative, especially the MIT ocean GCM, with a particular interest in numerical methods. He earned a Doctor in Sciences at the Universite catholique de Louvain. jmc@ocean.mit.edu
Penny (Sallie) Chisholm: Lee & Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies, Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Biology Professor Chisholm's interests involve the fundamentals of ecology and biological oceanography, with a focus on phytoplankton physiology and the ecology of marine planktonic food webs. Her research aims to quantify the role marine phytoplankton play in the global carbon cycle, and in regulating the dynamics of higher trophic levels in the sea. She is known for her work on growth regulation in marine phytoplankton, for introducing flow cytometric techniques into oceanography, and for the discovery of Prochlorococcus picoplankton. The latter comprise a significant fraction of the total photosynthetic biomass in the oceans. She is also working on the science and policy dimensions of large-scale ocean fertilization proposals. Prof. Chisholm has held the Doherty and Edgarton Chairs at MIT, and served as the Director of the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography ('88-'95), and as the Associate Chair of the Faculty. She is the recipient of the Rosenstiel Award in Ocean Sciences, a Guggenheim Award, and has been a Resident Scholar at the Bellagio Center in Italy. She is a Fellow of the AGU, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Microbiology. (Ph.D., '74, State University of New York at Albany; B.A., '69, Skidmore College) chisholm@mit.edu
Stephanie Dutkiewicz: Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Dutkiewicz's research is focused on elucidating the role of biological activity on the distribution of carbon within the oceans. Her current work aims to improve the representation of air-sea interactions and biogeochemical cycling in the MIT ocean GCM. She is involved in collaborative efforts with the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative. Her research centers on the cycling of carbon by both the "solubility pump" and "biological pump" in the 3D ocean models. She models the movement of the surface water through sinking and advection that redistributes the carbon concentrations in the ocean, and where biological activity fluxes carbon from the surface waters to the deep ocean. She received a Ph.D. ('97) in Oceaonography from the University of Rhode Island. stephd@ocean.mit.edu
Peter S. Eagleson: Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Emeritus Professor, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Eagleson is recognized as a world leader in hydrology, and has broad interests in hydroclimatology, in particular the fluxes of water and energy across land surfaces, their representation at different scales, and their parameterizations for general circulation models. His research has included studies of the space/time structure of storm precipitation; the interaction of climate, soil and vegetation; the atmospheric flow paths of water; and the remote sensing of land surface state. He has helped develop national plans in global change research as Chairman of the Global Atmospheric Research Program Working Group on Land Surface Processes, and as a member of the Drafting Group for the U.S. Climate Program Five Year Plan, NASA's Science Working Group on Land Related Global Habitability, the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Opportunities in Hydrology, and the U.S. National Committee on the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. He has served as the President of the American Geophysical Union ('86-'88), Councilor of the American Meteorological Society, and a member of the NRC Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, and NRC's Committee on Global Change Research. His awards include the AGU's Horton and Bowie Medals, the International Hydrology Prize of the International Association of Hydrologic Sciences, and the Stockholm Water Prize. He is a Fellow of the AGU and a member of NAE. (Sc.D., '56, MIT; M.S. '52, and B.S. '49, Lehigh University)
Elfatih Eltahir: Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Eltahir is a hydrologist with interest in hydroclimatology. The goal of his research is to advance understanding of the fundamental hydrological processes and mechanisms that govern the role of the land surface, as characterized by vegetative cover and soil moisture conditions, in the dynamics of land-atmosphere-ocean interactions and the associated water cycle at regional scales. Understanding of these processes is critical to the solution of several regional environmental problems that are important to society: assessment of the impact on sustainability of regional water resources due to deforestation and desertification; assessment of the predictability of large-scale hydrological droughts and floods as sources of significant natural hazard; and assessment of the regional impacts on water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems that may result from any global change scenario. Current research projects in Prof. Eltahir's group include studies of the role of the biosphere in the tropical climate, the mechanisms of soil moisture-rainfall feedbacks, El Nino and the hydrology of large tropical rivers, and the role of topography in lateral redistribution of soil moisture. Prof. Eltahir is the current Editor of Geophysical Research Letters, and a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, the Royal Meteorological Society, and the Sudan Engineering Society. He has chaired five special sessions on the general topic of Landsurface Processes and Climate during recent meetings of the AGU. His honors include the McLaughlin Award from the National University of Ireland, a NASA Fellowship in Global Change Research, a NASA New Investigator Award, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. (Sc.D., S.M., '93, MIT; M.S., '88, National University of Ireland; B.S., '85, University of Khartoum, Sudan) eltahir@mit.edu
Kerry A. Emanuel: Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Emanuel is interested in the dynamics and climate of the tropics, with a particular focus on moist convection and the various circulations that arise due to the interaction of the atmosphere and the ocean. These include hurricanes and certain circulations in the near-equatorial atmosphere. His current research involves theoretical and modeling studies of air-sea interaction in tropical cyclones, coupled atmosphere-ocean models of hurricanes, the dynamics of cumulus convection and large-scale circulations, and the control of atmospheric water vapor by convection. He is conducting numerical modeling and field experiments designed to determine an optimal sampling strategy for observations in aid of operational numerical weather prediction and climate models, and is developing a new physically based parameterization of moist convection of use in large-scale atmospheric models. He is a recipient of the Meisinger Award from the American Meteorological Society. (Ph.D., '78, S.B., '76, MIT) emanuel@mit.edu
Dara Entekhabi: Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Director, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science; Directoer, Earth System Initiative Professor Entekhabi's interests are global hydrology, hydrometeorology, and hydroclimatology, with a focus on land-surface/atmosphere interaction, and the statistical-dynamical modeling of processes in the Earth-atmosphere system. His research efforts are aimed at developing the understanding and the predictive capabilities to characterize physical processes in coupled land surface and atmospheric processes, using tools and techniques such as remote sensing and stochastic and probabilistic modeling. He has worked on the retrieval of soil moisture profiles using sequential assimilation of multi-sensor remotely sensed observations into coupled heat and moisture flow models, and has studied the teleconnections that force the inter-annual and large-scale variabilities in the precipitation regime over the African Continent. Much of his work focuses on developing physics-based parameterizations for the land-surface hydrology in atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs). He performs numerical climate and global hydrology experiments with both the full three-dimensional GCM as well as with a reduced zonal model that he has developed. In order to quantify land-surface/atmosphere interaction, he has employed aerological vapor flux data in estimating the fraction of the precipitation water that is due to local evaporation over several regions. He is also interested in chaotic dynamics in models of land-surface/atmosphere interaction, stochastic processes for rainfall that phenomenologically represent the mesoscale rain-storm structure, and assimilation and geophysical calibration of remotely sensed data using filtering concepts. Prof. Entekhabi's honors include the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Arturo Parisatti Prize, and American Geophysical Union's Macelwane Award. He is a member of the AGU, American Meteorological Society, and American Society of Civil Engineers. (Ph.D., '90, MIT; M.A., '87, M.A., '84, B.A., '83, Clark University) darae@mit.edu
Raffaele Ferrari: Cecil and Ida Green Associate Professor of Oceanography, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Ferrari's research focuses on ocean mixing, the temperature-salinity relationship of the upper ocean, and parameterization of eddy fluxes in ocean models. He also studies the dispersion of tracers in geophysical flows, solitary waves in deep and shallow waters, and wavelet techniques for data analysis. Prof. Ferrari has recieved fellowships from the NATO Advanced Study Institute, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and Fulbright. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Society and the European Geophysical Union. (Ph.D., 2001, Scripps Institute of Oceanography; Ph.D. '99, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; M.S., '94, Universita di Torino) rferrari@ mit.edu
Glenn R. Flierl: Professor of Oceanography, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Flierl's research is concerned with the theory of geophysical vortices and jets. His interests include modeling of the physics, chemistry, and biology of strongly nonlinear ocean eddies and meandering jets, such as the Gulf Stream, which meander around their average paths with wave-like features having many different scales and periods, with resulting nonlinearities playing a significant role in the dynamics. He uses various analytical and numerical models to analyze the dynamics of features such as vortices in vertically and horizontally sheared flows, and the interactions between waves and vortices, and makes comparisons to recent observational studies. He is conducting research on the growth of unstable perturbations on the Gulf Stream into finite-amplitude meanders and the way in which waves and eddies form in the region where the current detaches from the coast. Prof. Flierl is also investigating the physical and biological dynamics of the Georges Bank region. The tides, large-scale currents and jets, instability waves, and transient motions induced as off-shore eddies impinge upon the continental shelf transport and mix the biological populations and may also, by upwelling nutrients or transporting material off-shore, affect the growth and survival of plankton and fish. His other interests include the theory of isolated nonlinear eddies with application to Gulf Stream rings, Jupiter's Red Spot, and vortices in the solar nebula; biological patchiness and its role in ecosystem dynamics, and Hamiltonian dynamics of geophysical flows. (Ph.D., '75, Harvard University; B.A., '70, Oberlin College) glenn@lake.mit.edu
Mick Follows: Senior Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Follows is studying the oceanic carbon cycle, using models to understand the roles of the ocean circulation, inorganic chemistry and biological processes in setting the fluxes of carbon across the sea surface and into the deeper ocean. He is involved in collaborative efforts with the MIT Climate Modeling Inititive and The Darwin Project. He received a Ph.D. ('91) in atmospheric chemistry from the University of East Anglia, England, where his thesis work involved the use of models to understand the relative roles of the stratosphere-troposphere exchange, and in situ photochemistry on the tropospheric ozone distribution. This work was continued during a Royal Society Post Doctoral fellowship spent at the Max-Planck-Institut for Chemie in Mainz, Germany. mick@mit.edu
Jin Huang: Research Scientist, Center for Global Change Science Dr. Huang's research involves modeling the atmospheric lifetime and transport of various greenhouse and ozone depleting gases, and the optimal estimation of trace gas emissions using inverse methods including Kalman filtering. Her recent work has focused on estimating the regional distributions of nitrous oxide, and investigation of the possible polar sources of methyl chloroform. She is also investigating the possible causes of global trends in the sources and sinks of the hydroxyl radical, OH. (Ph.D., MIT, 2000; M.S., '93, B.S. '91, Nanjing University) jhuang@mit.edu
Patrick Heimbach: Princial Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Heimbach's research is focused on the development of improved representations of oceanic circulation in the ocean GCM used in the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative. His efforts also contribute to the ECCO project, which is estimating the circulation and climate of the ocean by synthesizing diverse remotely-sensed and in-situ observations with known dynamics and thermodynamics through an ocean GCM. heimbach@ocean.mit.edu
Harold F. Hemond: William E. Leonhard Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Hemond is a biogeochemist focused on wetland science and on catchment geochemistry, with interests that include limnology and wetland ecology, trace gas emission from wetlands, and chemical transport, fate, and human health effects in the environmental. His current research involves studies of the cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and arsenic; the hydrology of peatlands and its interaction with ecosystem chemical transport; ecotoxicology of arsenic; and in situ chemical measurement by mass spectrometry. Some of his accomplishments related to peatland and aquatic sediments include quantifying and modeling the dominance of organic acids in peatland acid-base chemistry, demonstrating the limits to marsh export of reduced sulfur on the basis of sediment hydrology, demonstrating the link between methane emission and atmospheric pressure in certain wetland types, and documenting seasonal (temperature-controlled) reversals of the N2O flux from river sediments. Prof. Hemond is a member of the American Geophysical Union, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and Ecological Society of America. His honors include Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, and he has received the MIT Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, and the Irwin Sizer Award. (Ph.D., '77, MIT; M.A., '74, Connecticut College; B.S., '69, Worcester Polytechnic Institute) hfhemond@mit.edu
Christopher Hill: Principal Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Mr. Hill's current research is focused on the application of parallel computers to the modeling of the oceanic and atmospheric circulation used in the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative. He is involved in several collaborative efforts with members of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, which are exploring a variety of differing strategies for making use multi-processor computers. He received a B.S. in Physics from Imperial College, London University, and spent several years studying network flow in electrical transmission grids before joining MIT in 1993. cnh@ocean.mit.edu
Helen Hill: Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Hill's research is focused on elucidating the role of eddies in ocean circulation. Her work involves collaborative efforts in the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative, primarily focused on the development and implementation of improved representations of ocean convection for use in the MIT ocean GCM. helen@ocean.mit.edu
Jonathan King: Professor of Molecular Biology, Department of Biology Professor King is a molecular biologist conducting laboratory research investigating the proteins from photosynthetic bacteria. Two current projects related to climate change that are under investigation by his research group include a study of the photosynthetic apparatus and heat shock response of the important marine bacteria Prochlorococcus, and a study of virus structure and assembly in Prochlorococcus. This widely distributed open ocean cyanobacterium has a very narrow temperature limit for growth. Given the rate of global warming, there is a particular interest in the molecular basis of this limit and whether its limits to growth are associated with the synthesis, folding or assembly of the photosystem proteins. In a collaborative effort with Prof. Penny Chisholm and others, they are isolating the phags infecting Prochlorococcus, and developing models for subunit polymerization into icosahedral shells as well as lattice transformations required for the procapsid to capsid transition in dsDNA viruses. These are likely to be important tools in the investigation of the ecology and physiology of this key member of the oceanic food chain. (Ph.D., '68, California Institute of Technology; B.S., '62, Yale) jaking@mit.edu
Richard S. Lindzen: Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying the ways in which unstable eddies determine the pole to equator temperature difference, and the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere. Prof. Lindzen has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. In cooperation with colleagues and students, he is developing a sophisticated, but computationally simple, climate model to test whether the proper treatment of cumulus convection will significantly reduce climate sensitivity to the increase of greenhouse gases. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the American Meteorological Society's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, and American Geophysical Union's Macelwane Medal. He is a corresponding member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Human Rights, a member of the U.S. National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University) rlindzen@mit.edu
John Marshall: Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Director, Climate Modeling Initiative Professor Marshall is an oceanographer interested in climate and the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, which he studies through the development of mathematical and numerical models of key physical and biogeochemical processes. Much of his research is directed at understanding and modeling the role of the ocean in climate change and its variability. His investigations focus on the dynamics and causes of the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, thermocline theory, geostrophic eddies, and global-scale ocean modeling. Recently his research has focused on the structure of the main thermocline of subtropical ocean gyres and those factors that control the rate at which they are ventilated from surface mixed layers through subduction and in deep-reaching convective chimneys. He is particularly interested in the underlying fluid mechanics, which he studies with the development and artful use of computer models. He collaborates with many people on a variety of projects of an interdisciplinary nature, both at MIT and elsewhere. Prof. Marshall is a recipient of the L.F. Richardson prize of the Royal Meteorological Society. (Ph.D., '80, B.S., '77, Imperial College, London) marshall@ocean.mit.edu
Dennis B. McLauglin: H.M. King Bhumibol Professor of Water Resource Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor McLaughlin is a hydrologist with interests in the connections between models, field data, and prediction algorithms. His research includes studies of surface and groundwater hydrology, environmental data assimilation, and estimation and control in water resource systems. His contributions include basic research on inverse problems and techniques for assimilating remotely sensed hydrologic data. His research on hydrologic scale is concerned with reconciling the resolution requirements of predictive models (including global climate models) with the sparse measurements available from remote sensing and ground-based data collection systems. He is currently investigating the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in Australia, Thailand, and other regions where food production may be limited by the availability if water. Prof. McLaughlin has been a visiting professor at the University of Western Australia, and a visiting scientist at ETH-Zurich, CSIRO (Australia), and at the Institute of Applied Geosciences of TNO in Delft, Holland. His educational interests include the use of interactive computer graphics for teaching environmental literacy at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. He has served on a number of government committees, including a U.S. National Research Council committee concerned with the scientific and regulatory aspects of groundwater modeling, and has consulted for a number of government agencies and private companies. Prof. McLaughlin is a member of the American Geophysical Union and has served as on the editorial boards of Water Resources Research, Stochastic Hydraulics and Hydrology, and Advances in Water Resources. (Ph.D., '85, M.S., '67, Princeton University; B.S., '66, Purdue University) dennism@mit.edu
Chiang C. Mei: Ford Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Mei's interests involve ocean wave hydrodynamics, including surface gravity waves and their interaction with currents and coastlines, finite-amplitude effects, mass transport, near-shore currents, transport and re-suspension of sediments, formation of sand ripples and bars on beaches, coastal land subsidence, and fluid-structure interactions. He also studies the mechanics of stresses and deformation in the seabed induced by waves, and the removal of contaminants from soils by air-venting and air-sparging. He is an expert in analytical and numerical methods. Prof. Mei's awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the British Institution of Civil Engineers' Hsieh Award, the University of Miami's Rosenstiel Award for contributions to applied marine physics, the American Society of Civil Engineers's Moffatt and Nichol Award in harbors and coastal engineering, and the ASCE International Coastal Engineering Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and Academia Sinica, and an Honorary Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. He has been a visiting professor in Argentina, Australia, China, France, Norway and Taiwan. He is the Founding Editor of Applied Ocean Research, and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Coastal Engineering. He is now an Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and a member of the editorial committee for the International Journal of Wave Motion. He has authored two textbooks: The Applied Dynamics of Ocean Surface Waves and Mathematical Methods in Engineering. (Ph.D., '63, California Institute of Technology; M.S., '58, Stanford University, B.S., '55, National Taiwan University) ccmei@mit.edu
Paul O'Gorman: Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor O'Gorman studies large-scale dynamics of the atmosphere, climate change, and turbulence. He is particularly interested in the behavior of the hydrological cycle and of extratropical storms in different climates. His current research is investigating three areas: water vapor and climate change, precipitation and its extremes, and extratropical storms. One challenge involves fully incorporating the effect of water vapor and latent heat release into theories of how, for example, the extent of the Hadley cell, the extratropical storm track position, or the strength of extratropical storms change as climate changes. He is also endeavoring to understand the physical basis for changes in precipitation and its extremes using extensive simulations of idealized atmospheres, together with scaling analyses of the underlying equations. And he is attempting to further quantify the changes in the energy of extratropical storms from very cold to warm climates, and understand if abrupt changes in the behavior of storm tracks can occur. (Ph.D., '04, California Institute of Technology; M.Sc., '99, B.A., '98, Trinity College, Ireland) pog@mit.edu
Shuhei Ono: Assistant Professor of Geochemistry, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Professor Ono's research interests include the biogeochemistry of sulfur and oxygen, water-rock-microbe interactions, seafloor hydrothermal deposits, deep biosphere, global sulfur cycles. He measures isotope tracers of atmosphere, rock, water, and microbe interactions to investigate the interplay among the atmosphere and biosphere. His geobiology laboratory group applies stable isotope systems, in particular, multiple-sulfur isotope ratios to explore frontiers in isotope geochemistry. His current research projects include, early microbial evolution (Archean Geochemsitry), deep biosphere, and seafloor hydrothermal deposits. (Ph.D., '01, Pennsylvania State University; M.E., '96, B.S., '94, Waseda University, Japan) sono@mit.edu
R. Alan Plumb: Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Director, Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate; Professor Plumb is an expert in atmospheric dynamics, with specific interests in the stratosphere, the global distribution of trace gases, and large-scale tropospheric dynamics. His research areas include the theory, modeling and parameterization of the transport of chemical species by the atmospheric circulation, and inverse theory of source determination; the dynamics of planetary waves and the polar vortices; thermally driven tropical circulations and the quasi-biennial oscillation; and the impact of the Antarctic ozone depletion on southern mid-latitudes and the rest of the globe. He also studies eddy transport processes, dynamics of the middle atmosphere, and long-lived atmospheric constituents. His accomplishments include the development of a dynamically self-consistent methodology for the design of two-dimensional transport models. He has served as a member of the NASA-World Meteorological Organization Ozone Assessment Panel, and the NASA High Speed Civil Transport Advisory Committee, which studied the effects of planned supersonic aircraft on the stratosphere. He has served as Chairman of the International Commission for Dynamical Meteorology's Working Group on Large-Scale Dynamics. In 1998 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. (Ph.D., '72, B.S., '69, University of Manchester) rap@rossby.mit.edu
Martin F. Polz: Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering The main focus of the Polz lab is the exploration of structure-function relationships in microbial communities. Environmental microbiology is at an important cross roads. We have learned during the last 20 years that microbes are the most ubiquitous organisms on Earth. Yet what governs the interactions and evolution of microorganisms within the complex communities present in the environment remains almost completely unknown. What environmental factors control the diversity and dynamics of microbial populations? What is the functional role and redundancy of individual populations within the community? What is the range of genome similarity that defines a functional unit? What mechanisms govern diversification of microbial populations in the environment? We seek to address these questions by a combination of in situ molecular approaches, environmental genomics, traditional physiological techniques and qualitative modeling using primarily the coastal Ocean as a model system. The ultimate goal of these studies is to gain better understanding and predictability of environmental processes involving microorganisms, including successful bioremediation to avoidance of pathogen outbreaks in the environment.(Ph.D., '97, A.M., '95, Harvard University; Magister rerum naturalis, '91, University of Vienna) mpolz@mit.edu
Ronald G. Prinn: TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science; Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; Director, Center for Global Change Science; Co-Director, Joint Program on the Policy and Science of Global Change Professor Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change. He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes. He is also working with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. Prof. Prinn has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change. He is the current Chairman for Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has chaired the Steering Committees for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program/International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project, the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Earth Sciences, and the U.S. Global Tropospheric Chemistry Program. He has been a member of the Steering Committees of the International Council of Scientific Unions/IGBP Scientific Committee, and the NASA Network for Detection of Stratospheric Change, and a member of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics/IAMAP International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution, the NRC Space Science Board, and NRC Committee for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, and NASA's Space Science and Applications Advisory Committee, and Earth System Sciences Committee. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and he was a V.I. Vernadsky Memorial Lecturer of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. (Sc.D., '71, MIT; M.S., '68, B.S., '67, University of Auckland, New Zealand) rprinn@mit.edu
Paola Malanotte Rizzoli: Professor of Physical Oceanography, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Director, MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Insitution (WHOI) Joint Program in Oceanography and Ocean Engineering Professor Rizzoli's interests focus on the modeling of the ocean circulation on different space and time scales and on the assimilation of oceanographic data into ocean general circulation models (OGCM). She and her collaborators have been implementing a hierarchy of numerical models with data assimilation packages suitable for different types of dataset (hydrography, altimetry, acoustic tomography) and for different applications, i.e. synthesis of models with data versus ocean prediction. The ocean basins of interest are the following: 1) Closed and semi-enclosed seas, specifically the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where she is the co-chairperson of International Collaborative Programmes sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. The modeling effort is interdisciplinary involving the coupling of OGCM's with chemical/biological components to model and study the ecosystem interactions. 2) Regional and basin-scale applications, specifically the Gulf Stream System and the Northern Atlantic Ocean in fully realistic configurations, with emphasis on the assimilation of altimetric data (GEOSAT, TOPEX). The scientific goals are on understanding the properties of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation, its interactions with the wind-driven Gulf Stream System and, more recently, the interactions between the subtropical and tropical regions. A recent multi-year collaboration on this last topic has been established with Dr. Antonio Busalacchi of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, with which the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences has formed a Joint Center for Geosciences. 3) Global applications. Different OGCM's are used by her group in global ocean coarse resolution calculations in which different parameterizations of not resolved, sub-grid scale, processes are assessed. These models will then be coupled with atmospheric OGCM's for climate studies. (Ph.D., '78, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Ph.D., '68, University of Padua, Italy; B.S., '63, Lyceum Benedetti, Venice) rizzoli@ocean.mit.edu
C. Adam Schlosser: Principal Research Scientist, Center for Global Change Science; Assistant Director for Research, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Dr. Schlosser's research interests involve modeling and numerical experimentation of the global water, energy and carbon systems, as well as the analyses of global observations of these systems. Specifically, his work addresses the importance of terrestrial processes and their interactions and feedbacks with atmospheric and ocean processes, and how improvements in the understanding and modeling of these mechanisms will affect the predictability, predictions and projections of climate variability and global change. Prior to joining MIT's Global Change Joint Program (2001-2003), he was an associate research scientist for the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center and worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He lead in the scientific coordination, analysis and development of NASA's global water cycle strategy for prediction and satellite observations, and played an active role in the field experiments of NASA's Cold Land Processes Experiment. He also worked at the Center for Ocean Land Atmosphere Studies (1997-2001), and examined the role of land variations, particularly, snow and soil moisture, in coupled climate predictions. During his postdoctoral studies (1995-1997), he worked at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, where he conducted numerical experiments with a general circulation model to study soil-moisture predictability and its role in coupled atmospheric predictability. He has also lead an international land-model comparison experiment, Phase 2d of the Project for the Intercomparison of Land-Surface Schemes. Currently, he serves as lead evaluator for the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2, science-team member of NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study, and member of the Interagency Working Group for the Global Water Cycle. (Ph.D. in Meteorology, 1995, M.S. in Meteorology, 1992, U. of Maryland; B.S. in Physics at U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) casch@mit.edu
Jeffery Scott: Research Scientist, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Dr. Scott studies the role of the large-scale ocean circulation in climate and is involved with cooperative efforts in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative. His research is investigating the response of the climate system to greenhouse forcing and to changes in orbital forcing paramters, and the energetics of the large-scale ocean circulation. (Ph.D. in Climate Physics and Chemistry, 2000, MIT) jscott@mit.edu
Noelle Eckley Selin: Assistant Professor, Engineering Systems, and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Prof. Selin's research focuses on using atmospheric chemistry modeling to inform decision-making strategies on air pollution, climate change and mercury pollution. Her current work is in three main areas: Impacts of Air Pollution and Climate Change, Biogeochemical Cycling of Mercury (Hg), and Science and Policy of Hazardous Substances. For her PhD research she developed and evaluated a global, 3D atmospheric model of mercury pollution. She has published articles and book chapters on the interactions between science and policy in international environmental negotiations, in particular focusing on global efforts to regulate hazardous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants. Previously she was a research associate with the Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a visiting researcher at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has also worked on chemicals issues at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (Ph.D., 2007, M.A., 2000, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University; B.A., Environmental Science and Public Policy, Harvard, 2000) selin@mit.edu
Anne Slinn: Executive Director, Center for Global Change Science; Executive Director for Research, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Ms. Slinn manages the CGCS and the Global Change Joint Program with a primary focus on sustaining interdisciplinary research and synthesizing scientific description. She works as a program manager, science writer/editor, research administrator, communications director, and administrative officer. Her purview involves coordination of research direction and resource development, and integration of scientific documentation and communication. Her academic background is in geophysical fluid dynamics and heat transfer. Her MIT master's thesis in Civil Engineering involved satellite remote sensing of wind-induced stresses on the ocean surface and analysis of the interaction of wind and large-scale ocean circulation. For her master's work in Mechanical Engineering at WSU, she combined molecular theory with experimental laser design to measure the radiative absorption properties of hydrocarbon gases that are common in the atmosphere. (S.M., '91, MIT; M.S., '88, B.S., '87, Washington State University) slinn@mit.edu
Andrei Sokolov: Research Scientist, Center for Global Change Science and Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Dr. Sokolov's research interests include atmospheric general circulation modeling, and climate sensitivity and feedback studies. He has extensive experience in the development and modification of the underlying computer codes in general circulation models. He is presently working to generalize a two-dimensional climate model used in an integrated assessment of climate change. His modifications are making the model more suitable for assessing uncertainty and impacts of climate change on ecosystems. (Ph.D., '86, Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory, Leningrad; M.S., '76, Leningrad State University) sokolov@mit.edu
David H. Staelin: Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor Staelin is an electrical engineer and radio astronomer with a particular interest in remote sensing of planetary atmospheres. He conducts research in remote sensing, radio and optical astronomy, image processing, and applications to manufacturing. He has been involved in passive microwave observations of atmospheric humidity, precipitation, and temperature profiles, and was a contributor to the development of the predecessors to presently operational passive microwave sensors on weather satellites. He is currently working to develop methods for sounding global atmospheric temperature and composition profiles, sea ice, snow cover, and other parameters using passive microwave spectrometers on satellites, and improving methods for parameter retrieval are being developed and tested using data from aircraft and meteorological satellites. Prof. Staelin is a member of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder team for the NASA Earth Observing System program, a member and former Chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on radio frequencies, and a former Director of Environmental Research and Technology Corporation. (Sc.D., '65, S.M., '61, S.B., '60, MIT) staelin@ll.mit.edu
Peter H. Stone: Professor Emeritus, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; Associate Director, Climate Modeling Initiative Professor Stone is an expert in atmospheric dynamics who has made important contributions to the development of climate models of all kinds, ranging from the simplest one-dimensional process models to full-scale three-dimensional general circulation models. He is a member of the team that developed the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation climate model, and has been applying it to climate change problems. He is the Associate Director of MIT's Climate Modeling Initiative, which is engaged in developing a new state of the art three-dimensional climate model, to be used for teaching and research projects, with a focus on studies of the predictability of climate. He is involved in many studies aimed at understanding dynamical transports of heat and moisture in the atmosphere and oceans and how they affect climate sensitivity. These studies include the development and analysis of simple climate models and coupled atmosphere-ocean models, diagnostic studies of the general circulation of the atmosphere, and numerical studies of the interaction of baroclinic eddies with mean flows. His interests also include the dynamics of planetary atmospheres, and satellite observations of the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. He is a participant in the interdisciplinary part of NASA's Earth Observing System program, and has served on many NASA and National Research Council committees involved in planning planetary exploration. Prof. Stone is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, a past Editor of the journals Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, and Journal of Climate. He was the founding Director of the MIT Center for Meteorology and Physical Oceanography. (Ph.D., '64, B.A., '59, Harvard University) phstone@mit.edu
Chien Wang: Principal Research Scientist, Center for Global Change Science, and Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Dr. Wang's research interests include cloud dynamics and microphysics, interactions between cloud-scale and large-scale processes, and atmospheric chemistry. He has developed a three-dimensional modeling system to simulate the dynamical, microphysical, and chemical processes of clouds, especially of deep convective clouds. He is also working on a global-scale interactive chemistry and climate model and using this model to study the sensitivity of climate change to atmospheric chemical processes. (Ph.D., '92, State University of New York at Albany; M.S., '85, Chinese Academy of Sciences; B.S., '82, Peking University) wangc@mit.edu
Earle R. Williams: Principal Research Engineer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Dr. Williams' research interests include cloud electrification and lightning, ice physics, atmospheric convection and hydrometeorology. He is currently investigating the Earth's global electrical circuit and global lightning activity as a sensitive diagnostic for global change and as a probe for optical phenomena known as sprites and elves above mesoscale convective systems worldwide. He is involved in international projects for monitoring the Schumann resonances of the Earth-atmosphere cavity from field sites in Rhode Island, Hungary, Israel and Australia. In collaboration with colleagues at Lincoln Laboratory, he is investigating the electrical activity in tornadic supercell storms which may provide additional warning for the tornado itself. In collaboration with colleagues at the Parsons Laboratory, he has been exploring the use of NEXRAD radar data in hydrological models for drainage basins in New England and Oklahoma. He has served as the Director of the MIT Weather Radar Laboratory, Secretary of the International Committee on Atmospheric Electricity, and Chairman of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Atmospheric Electricity. (Ph.D., '81, MIT; B.A. Swarthmore College, '74) earlew@juliet@ll.mit.edu
Carl I. Wunsch: Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Professor Wunsch is interested in the determination of the oceanic general circulation, its influence on climate and biogeochemical fluxes, and the possibility of prediction. His research involves theory, observations at sea and from space, numerical modeling, and novel mathematical methods for combining dynamics with data. In 1979 he proposed what has come to be called the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and chaired both the U.S. and International Planning Committees for this large scale program directed at understanding the role of the ocean in climate and climate change. He has been deeply involved in developing and using new technologies for observing the large-scale properties of the ocean, especially acoustic tomography, which exploits the transparency of the ocean to sound and satellite altimetry. His attention is also focused on the development of powerful analysis methods for the data, such as inverse and control methods. He has chaired the NASA Science Working Group for the TOPEX altimetric mission, which is measuring the topography of the ocean surface, and the National Research Council/ National Academy of Sciences Ocean Studies Board. He is a member of the NAS, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and of the Huntsman Prize. (Ph.D., '67, S.B., '62, MIT) cwunsch@mit.edu
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cgcs@mit.edu.
1/2010