The Climate Academy

Today I am interviewing Sylvia Dee, an assistant professor at Rice University leading the Climate, Energy and Water Lab. Dr. Dee is a climate scientist specializing in atmospheric modeling, water isotope physics, and paleoclimate data-model comparison. In this conversation we discussed the intricacies of including proxy data in data assimilation products, climate modelling and inferring possible future rainfall changes from climates of the past. Read more about Sylvia’s research on her website: https://sylviadeeclimate.org/.

Tim Woollings is an associate professor at the University of Oxford. In this special episode aimed at a general audience, we talk about his book called ‘Jet Stream’, which covers the mechanisms behind atmospheric circulation patterns, the impacts of the jet stream on today’s climate and the impacts due to climate change. If you want to watch the video interview go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va1cQg-BqPU&feature=youtu.be. You can find more info about Tim here: https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/contacts/people/woollings and the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44512243-jet-stream.

Jhordanne Jones is a Ph.D. student at Colorado State University researching tropical cyclones. We talked about her past research on changes in tropical cyclones due to climate change and her more recent research on large-scale atmospheric forcing of tropical cyclones in the present climate using reanalyses and climate models. We also talked about her journey into becoming a Ph.D. student in the US coming from Jamaica, as well as diversity and inclusion. Learn more about her research on her website: https://tropical.colostate.edu/Group/Jones/index.html

In this interview, I had the pleasure to interview Allison Wing from Florida State University. She gave me a clear and concise review of what we know about the effects of hurricanes on climate change, plus she explained to me the motivations behind the Radiative Convective Equilibrium model inter-comparison project (led by her), the unexpected findings and the way forward. Learn more: http://myweb.fsu.edu/awing/index.html

Dan is a scientist working at NCAR and his main interests span the fields of oceanography, biogeochemistry and computer science. Here he explains why biogeochemistry matters for projections of future climate change, and we have an interesting exchange on the effects of pollution on fisheries and sustainability. Finally, we talk about how we deal with negativity and rejection in academia and ways to feel better about them (it was actually a fun chat!). Check out Dan's work: https://danielwhitt.github.io/