CAREER: Going Global - The Influence of Southern Ocean Albedo on Large-scale Climate Dynamics

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This project will use observations and a state-of-the-art community earth system model(CESM) to advance understanding of the coupling between Southern Ocean clouds, atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns, and climate. Though climate models inform our understanding of this coupling, they have large biases when compared to observations, calling into question their use. Recently a version of the CESM with large reductions in long-standing ubiquitous Southern Ocean cloud and radiation model biases. has been developed by this researcher. By comparing the improved and the default versions of CESM, the proposed research will quantify and establish the influence of Southern Ocean clouds on global circulation patterns in both constant and warming climate scenarios. The educational component of the project will investigate the influence of a polar hook on a student's interest in and capacity to learn about the globally connected climate system. The PI will develop, implement, and evaluate curriculum with and without a polar hook at the undergraduate non-science major level, and then work with educational partners to develop, implement, and evaluate parallel curriculum for high school students in Colorado with a focus on under-represented communities. Coupling cloud processes with the large-scale circulations of the atmosphere and ocean and climate is a new research frontier, with important implications for climate change projections. The project focuses on the Southern Ocean, the cloudiest place on the planet and also a region that strongly impacts the global climate system by serving as a sink for carbon and heat. The proposed research will bring together cloud and climate dynamics expertise to enable fundamental advances in cloud-circulation coupling and its influence on climate. The integrated educational activities will produce engaging and thoroughly vetted curriculum on polar regions and climate modeling that will be used within classrooms at the University of Colorado, within under-represented communities in Colorado, and then distributed students world-wide and educators through educational partners. Through the proposed educational research on the effectiveness of using a polar hook in the classroom, the study will also identify effective instructional approaches for student learning and engagement.