News
GFDL Celebrates Women’s History Month
During Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day this March, GFDL is honoring the remarkable achievements and contributions of women. To mark this occasion, we invited our team members to share their stories of women who have positively impacted their lives and careers.
News
NOAA scientists harness machine learning to advance climate models
March 1, 2023 – When you hear the term “machine learning,” you might think of controversial chatbots or the algorithms that govern your social media feeds. But NOAA GFDL scientists are investigating how to use machine learning in another way: to improve climate, weather and other earth system models. Unlike traditional climate models, which make predictions by simulating land, ocean and atmospheric processes, machine learning allows systems to “learn” from results of those simulations.
News
Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change, at the United Nations COP27 Climate Conference
February 7, 2023 – Last November, leaders and delegates from across the globe traveled to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt with the important goal of discussing and agreeing upon policies to mitigate climate change. Virtually joining the approximately 92 heads of state and 35,000 representatives of 190 countries in attendance at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) was NOAA GFDL physical scientist Kirsten Findell.
News
National Academy of Science honors NOAA’s Kirk Bryan for pioneering ocean and climate science
January 23, 2023 – Former NOAA scientist Kirk Bryan Jr., Ph.D, has been named winner of the 2023 National Academy of Science’s (NAS) Alexander Agassiz Medal for his pioneering work in oceanography and climate science.Bryan is widely recognized as the founder of numerical ocean modeling, and his work in the late 1960s at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey led to the first-of-its-kind general circulation climate model – combining both oceanic and atmospheric processes to bring forth insights into how the ocean and atmosphere interact with each other to influence climate.
Research Highlight
The relative role of the subsurface Southern Ocean in driving negative Antarctic Sea ice extent anomalies in 2016–2021
January 19, 2023 – One of the most puzzling observed climate events in recent years was the dramatic decline in Antarctic Sea ice extent (SIE) in late 2016. It remains unclear to what extent this low sea ice extent can be attributed to changing ocean conditions. This SIE retreat persisted for several years after 2016, thus becoming a multiyear shift. In this study, the authors used a coupled climate model to reproduce these Antarctic SIE characteristics and found that the subsurface Southern Ocean (SO) plays a smaller role in the 2016 SIE extreme event than the atmosphere.
News
NOAA GFDL scientists make Highly Cited Researcher list for third year in a row
January 5, 2023 – NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory scientists saw their research extend far and wide in 2022, as five NOAA GFDL researchers were listed among the most highly-cited scientists in the world in December. NOAA GFDL scientists Tom Delworth, John Dunne, Stephen Griffies, Larry Horowitz, and Andrew Wittenberg were among 13 total NOAA scientists to make the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher list for 2022. Every year, Clarivate, a company that provides analytics on scientific and academic research, compiles a list of scientists whose work is most frequently cited by their peers over the last decade. The distinction is important because it shows how influential a scientist’s work is — to be highly-cited is to know that one’s research is contributing greatly to the growing body of scientific knowledge.
Research Highlight
Reduction in Near-Surface Wind Speeds With Increasing CO2 May Worsen Winter Air Quality in the Indo-Gangetic Plain
December 30, 2022 – The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), stretching from Pakistan to Bangladesh across Northern India, and home to over 800 million people, experiences among the most elevated concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the world. High local anthropogenic emissions associated with waste and crop residue burning, transportation, industry, and power generation are the primary cause for the poor air quality in the region.
Award
Ming Zhao’s Research and Model Development Recognized by AGU
November 21, 2022 – For Ming Zhao’s “growing research accomplishments and leadership in climate model development”, he has been recognized with the 2022 AGU Ascent Award. A Senior Physical Scientist at GFDL, Zhao conducts research focused on challenging topics with extensive societal and economic implications, while also being exceptionally skilled in the development of climate models.
News
Population aging, economic status may amplify air pollution health impacts
October 27, 2022 – Population aging and economic development setbacks may outpace the health benefits of less air pollution and slowed climate change, according to a Penn State-led researcher team examining air quality and the factors most likely to impact future premature deaths. The team used past and projected data to model five future scenarios estimating premature deaths due to air pollution and identified areas of the world that could be the most impacted.