Meteorologist
GFDL Seasonal-to-Decadal Variability and Predictability Division
Email: Nathaniel.Johnson@noaa.gov
Focus Areas:
- Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Climate Prediction
- Climate Variability and Dynamics
- Decadal-to-Multidecadal Climate Variability and Change
- Climate Communication
Nathaniel Johnson
Research Interests
My research focuses on climate dynamics, with particular interests in subseasonal-to-seasonal climate variability and predictability, climate prediction, tropical-extratropical interaction, and atmospheric teleconnection patterns. I enjoy projects that translate research advances into new or better operational forecast products, and I find fulfillment in communicating science to a broad range of audiences. In addition to my research projects, I oversee GFDL’s real-time seasonal forecast efforts with the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME), I am a member of NOAA’s El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) seasonal forecast team, and I am a regular writer for the NOAA Climate.gov ENSO Blog.
Research Highlights
Tseng, K.-C., N. C. Johnson, S. B. Kapnick, T. L. Delworth, F. Lu, W. Cooke, A. T. Wittenberg, A. J. Rosati, L. Zhang, C. McHugh, X. Yang, M. Harrison, F. Zeng, G. Zhang, H. Murakami, M. Bushuk, and L. Jia, 2021: Are multiseasonal forecasts of atmospheric rivers possible? Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL094000.
Tseng, K.-C., N. C. Johnson, E. D. Maloney, E. A. Barnes, and S. B. Kapnick, 2021: Mapping large-scale climate variability to hydrological extremes: An application of the linear inverse model to subseasonal prediction. Journal of Climate, 34, 4207-4225.
Johnson, N. C., D. J. Amaya, Q. Ding, Y. Kosaka, H. Tokinaga, and S.-P. Xie, 2020: Multidecadal modulations of key metrics of global climate change. Global and Planetary Change, 188, 103149.
Johnson, N. C., L. Krishnamurthy, A. T. Wittenberg, B. Xiang, G. A. Vecchi, S. Kapnick, and S. Pascale, 2020: The impact of sea surface temperature biases on North American precipitation in a high-resolution climate model. Journal of Climate, 33, 2427-2447.
Johnson, N. C., M. L’Heureux, C.-H. Chang, and Z.-Z. Hu, 2019: On the delayed coupling between ocean and atmosphere in recent weak El Niño episodes. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 11,416-11,425.
Janoski, T. B., A. J. Broccoli, S. B. Kapnick, and N. C. Johnson, 2018: Effects of climate change on wind-driven heavy snowfall events over eastern North America. Journal of Climate, 31, 9037–9054.
Johnson, N. C., S.-P. Xie, Y. Kosaka, and X. Li, 2018: Increasing occurrence of cold and warm extremes during the recent global warming slowdown. Nature Communications, 9, 1724.
Black, J., N. C. Johnson, S. Baxter, S. B. Feldstein, D. S. Harnos, and M. L’Heureux, 2017: The predictors and forecast skill of Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns for lead times of 3-4 weeks. Monthly Weather Review, 145, 2855-2877.
Johnson, N. C., and Y. Kosaka, 2016: The impact of eastern equatorial Pacific convection on the diversity of boreal winter El Niño teleconnection patterns. Climate Dynamics, 47, 3737.
Selected Climate.gov ENSO Blog Posts
- August 2021 ENSO update: Rockin’ out of neutral?
- Double-dipping: Why does La Niña often occur in consecutive winters?
- Did the Northern Hemisphere get the memo on this year’s La Niña?
- Zooming in on some of NOAA’s latest seasonal hurricane forecast research
- Meet ENSO’s neighbor, the Indian Ocean Dipole
- ENSO and your health: how the 2015-16 El Niño led to early warnings for global disease outbreaks
- CSI ENSO: The case of the missing central Pacific rainfall