research overview
- Studies dynamics, predictability, and impacts of changes in the Earth’s climate on timescales from seasons to millennia. Focuses on the tropical oceans where natural and man-made changes can have far-flung influences. Explores the mechanism driving these climate fluctuations using complex and conceptual models combined with historical and paleo observations. Studies tipping points in the climate system via analysis of past climate changes in models and paleoclimate records. Has made progress understanding the dynamics and predictability of El Niño, La Niña, the existence of tipping points in the tropical oceans, as well as improving predictions of long-term climate changes across the tropics. Recent research demonstrates a human influence on decadal fluctuations in the climate of the North Pacific previously thought to be entirely naturally generated.