About

Our group’s research focuses on atmospheric dynamics—we work to understand how atmospheric circulations, radiative transfer, ocean interactions, and land surface processes control the distributions of heat and water on Earth. Some of our research centers on monsoons, which are continental-scale atmospheric circulations that deliver water to billions of people in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and northern Australia; monsoon winds also constitute a major component of Earth’s global atmospheric circulation. We also study extreme weather phenomena, seeking to understand how fluid dynamics and thermodynamics govern the behavior of atmospheric vortices, heat waves, and intense precipitation. We pay particular attention to the phase changes of water in Earth’s atmosphere, as the interaction of precipitating clouds with planetary-scale flow is one of the central unresolved problems of planetary science. In all of our work, we combine theory, observational analyses, and numerical models to discover how the world around us works.