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John C. H. Chiang Assistant
Professor |
547
McCone Hall tel: 510 642 3900 fax:
510 642 3370 |
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My group
focuses on large-scale tropical atmosphere, ocean, and land systems and its
interactions with the global climate. My favorite
ocean-atmosphere-land interaction is pictured above (and usually with a good
book and piña colada in hand). An
early interest was on the large-scale convective climate of the tropical
Atlantic, which possesses a remarkable property of being exquisitely
sensitive to change; and in changing, become agents of climate change
elsewhere. It got me to thinking
about the larger role the tropics play in the global climate system, in
particular the way it responds to, and feeds back on, climate forcing. This line of questioning has led me
to consider ocean-atmosphere interactions in different ocean basins, and the
interactions between them; to interactions between the extratropics and
tropics, considering processes as far removed as the thermohaline
circulation, and building ice sheets.
Past climates motivate much of my research, as it offers valuable
clues on the linkages between various climate processes and just how
susceptible our climate is to change.
My ultimate goal is to understand how the global climate reorganizes
in the face of climate forcings, past and future; while that goal is still in the
far distance, all signs point to the tropical climate as key. I
use a variety of tools in my research, from statistical analysis of climate
data, to developing simple models, to using more complex models of the
atmosphere and ocean. My most effective research tool by far, however,
is the mug of coffee at the neighborhood café! |
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Courses [previous
semesters] Spring 2008
Geog 40, Introduction to
Earth System Science. Please sign up to bspace for
lecture slides and materials.
The course
website for Spring 2006 (then called Global Environmental Change) will give you an idea of the contents of this
course. Geog 257, Topics in Climatology. This semester’s topic. |
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Group [past members]
[group photo] Yue Fang postdoctoral scholar Miren Vizcaino postdoctoral
scholar Hyo-Seok
Park graduate student |
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New stuff Fang, Y, J. C. H. Chiang, and P. Chang:
Variation of mean sea surface temperature and modulation of El Niño-Southern
Oscillation variance during the past 150 years. In press for Geophysical
Research Letters, Apr
2008. pdf supplementary Chiang, J.C.H., Y. Fang, and P. Chang: The interhemispheric thermal
gradient and tropical Pacific climate.
Submitted to Geophysical Research Letters, 28 March 2008. pdf supplementary |
Last
updated 25 April 2008