GFDL - Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

Thomas R. Knutson

Research Meteorologist

GFDL Climate Change, Variability, and Prediction Group

Contact:  Tom.Knutson@noaa.gov | (609) 452-6509

Assessment article (hurricanes and climate):

• "Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change",  an assessment by a World Meteorological Organization Expert Team on Climate Change Impacts on Tropical Cyclones (Nature Geoscience, March 2010).  For more information on the expert team see this WMO web page.
  

Research Interests

• Atlantic Hurricane Activity:
  • Has Global Warming Affected Atlantic Hurricane Activity? (Updated August 2011)
    
  • Modeled Impact of Anthropogenic Warming on the Frequency of Intense Atlantic Hurricanes. Science (published Jan. 2010)
  • FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on our recent Science paper (updated December 2010)
  • Impact of Duration Thresholds on Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Counts.   J. Climate (2010, by Landsea, Vecchi, Bengtsson, and Knutson)
    
  • Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo202 (Published online May 2008)
  • FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on our Nature Geoscience study (Posted June 11, 2008)
  • On Estimates of Historical North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity -- J. Climate (July 15, 2008 issue)
  • Simulated Hurricane Animations Web Page
  •  Global Warming and Hurricanes Web Page

• Impacts of Greenhouse Gas-Induced Warming:
  • Hurricane Activity
    • Global Warming and Hurricanes Web Page
  • El Nino/Southern Oscillation
  • Sahel Drought (Held et al. PNAS paper)
  • Summertime Heat Index Values
  • Coral Bleaching (Donner et al. PNAS paper)

• Climate Change Detection and Attribution:
  • Assessment of Twentieth Century Regional Surface Temperature Trends using the GFDL CM2 Coupled Models
  • Simulation of Early 20th Century Global Warming
  • Tropical Pacific Decadal Variability and Trends
  • Sahel Drought in the 20th century (Held et al. PNAS paper)
  • Coral Bleaching (Donner et al. PNAS paper)
  • Land cover change affects on climate (Findell et al. 2006)