CAREER: Understanding Changing Seasonality, Variability and Extremes in the Northeast U.S. Climate

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This project will establish an integrated research, education and outreach program to understand changing climate in the Northeast (NE) United States. The research will emphasize high resolution global multi-model ensembles being prepared for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Analysis will include verification of models using both global and regional observations (temperature, precipitation, winds and moisture) and evaluation of projections for variables and timescales of importance to the region. Uncertainties will be examined using multi-model statistics. The objectives of this research are to evaluate and understand the drivers of 21st century probabilistic changes in: (a) the phase and amplitude of the mean annual cycle of climate variables, (b) the relationship between NE cold season precipitation and temperature variability associated with both tropical and mid-latitude sources, (c) the variability of warm season moisture transport into the Northeast and the relationship of soil moisture to temperature and precipitation variability, and (d) indices of extremes, the frequency and intensity of cold season cyclones, the intensity and duration of extreme heat, and their modulation by decadal variations. The education and outreach will focus on (a) training a postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student and undergraduates in the climate science specialty of geography, (b) developing a new upper division honors course on climate change science which includes an outreach/service learning component, (c) adding new project-related content to a large-enrollment, introductory course on climate, (d) developing geographic information system (GIS) based web portal for visualizing probabilistic climate change projections for Connecticut/NE, (e) sharing research results and findings with the Connecticut Governor?s Steering Committee (GSC) and Adaptation Subcommittee on Climate Change, and with other NE state and regional impacts and adaptation policy efforts. Broader impacts of this project are primarily educational and in the potential to advance understanding of current and especially future climate means, variability and extremes and of mechanisms leading to greater confidence in projections in the northeastern US, which has important societal benefits.