From my time in graduate school, I have been interested in what is known as Climate Dynamics - the theoretical understanding of why the climate system does what it does. This knowledge has led to theories of El Nino, and served as the basis for prediction systems for seasonal climate forecasts. Max Suarez and I formulated the delayed action oscillator for El Nino/Southern Oscillation, which describes why El Nino happens every 3 to 7 years.
By combining ocean dynamics with an understanding of how the atmosphere reacts to warm or cool temperatures of the sea surface, we were able to show the El Nino is a fundamentally coupled phenomenon of the climate system.
I am also very interested in how climate change and climate variability influences agriculture, forestry, economic activity and the behavior of societies. So many of the people who are forced to live with the consequences of climate change have had very, very little to do with creating it.
I am very honored to be participating in an exciting new NSF study on the impact of climate change on sub-saharan and circumboreal agro-pastoralist societies. This is a joint project with the Mason Center for Social Complexity, the Smithsonian Institution, the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering, and the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences in the College of Science