TUESDAY March 15th, IRMACS Theatre 12.30 p.m. The Roles of Clouds and Water Vapor in Climate Change David Randall, Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. Host Department: Physics (Mike Plischke) Abstract The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor in Climate Change I will begin with a brief primer on the physics of climate change, and how it is represented in climate models, and how the models are tested with observations. This will be followed by a discussion of how clouds and water vapor modulate the Earth's climate through their radiative effects, through the effects of the large latent heat of water on atmospheric energetics, and by rapidly transporting energy, mass, and momentum across thick layers of air. David Randall received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from Ohio State University, and his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976. Following positions at MIT and with NASA, he joined the Colorado State University Department of Atmospheric Science in 1988. His current research interests focus on modeling studies of clouds and their role in the global climate system using numerical simulation. Ongoing projects include development of improved cloud parameterization methods, numerical experiments to determine the role of clouds in maintaining the preset climate, and an investigation into the role of clouds in climate dynamics. His research is supported by NSF and the U.S. Department of Energy. He is the Director of the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP), an NSF Science and Technology Center. Dr. Randall is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the AAAS, and the American Geophysical Union. He is a recipient of the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and the AMS Meisinger Award. He was Chief Editor of the Journal of Climate for ten years, and is currently Chief Editor for the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES). The Seminars can be viewed live at: http://www.irmacs.sfu.ca/about/live-video. |