With a major influx of new faculty in Climate System Science, the Jackson School has
significantly risen in prominence as a place to pursue graduate studies in climate.
The school previously employed a small cadre of excellent scientists earning competitive
national grants for research in paleoclimates, regional modeling, modeling uncertainty,
and abrupt climate change. The addition of five new faculty members for 2008-2009 significantly
deepened the school's climate team. The new arrivals include two nationally established stars
and three professors at earlier stages in their careers who have made significant contributions
to the field and show outstanding promise.
Researchers in the Department of Geological Sciences now cover a range of climate topics with particular
strength in modeling and the integration of climate science and landscape processes to gain better
understandings of the changes that will affect land use, land cover, erosion, sedimentary processes,
and environmental quality. Major areas of research include improving global and regional modeling
through application of the latest remote sensing technology; mathematical modeling of land surface
processes and their role in controlling weather and climate; understanding the processes that control
climate variability of the atmospheric hydrological cycle; improving our physical understanding of
climate variability and climate change to improve prediction on all time scales; improving regional
climate models and building a coupled atmosphere/ocean/
vegetation regional model; quantifying the
relative role of land versus oceans in determining rainfall in the southwest and south central U.S.,
with implications for similar semi-arid regions worldwide; investigating the impacts of vegetation-produced
chemicals (or biogenic emissions) on air quality.
Paleoclimatology is another well covered subject, involving researchers in the Department
of Geological Sciences and the Institute for Geophysics. Studying foraminifera and coral records,
Jackson School researchers explore the forcings that initiate climate change and the mechanisms by
which climate signals propagate globally. The work synthesizes data and model simulations covering
the past 600 million years.
Another set of climate researchers at the Institute for Geophysics has strengths in climate
theory and dynamics, ice-sheet dynamics, ocean dynamics, and uncertainties and data inversion.
High-profile climate problems are addressed in these disciplines using quantitative models of the
dynamic processes of the atmosphere, cryosphere, ocean, and lithosphere; modern satellite, airborne,
and in situ measurements of these components of the Earth system; climate proxy time series (paleorecords);
and analytical techniques to assess uncertainties in model predictions and proxy reconstructions of climate.
Carbon sequestration does not fit directly into climate science but is a potentially vital tool for
mitigating effects on climate from greenhouse gases. The Bureau of Economic Geology is home to the Gulf
Coast Carbon Center, one of the world‚s largest research groups testing the science of sequestration,
also known as carbon capture and storage. The center employs a number of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
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- Reconstructing and modeling past climate
- Abrupt Climate Change
- Future Climate Prediction
- Land Surface/Atmosphere Interaction
- Tropical Climate Dynamics
Here is a sampling of current research projects underway by CSS Faculty.
Please see the individual faculty web sites linked for more details.
J. Banner
Records of past climate preserved in caves in Texas, the Western Pacific region,
the Bahamas, and Barbados
Reconstructing the chemistry of ancient oceans using marine carbonate rocks
R. Came
Orbital and suborbital scale variability in ocean circulation and climate
Deglacial variability in the surface return flow of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
K. Cook
Development and application of the regional climate model coupling atmosphere,
ocean, and land
Abrupt climate change potential over northern Africa and the central U.S.
R. Dickinson
Modeling the role of vegetation in climate and climate change
Observing the effects of clouds and aerosols on ecosystems and climate
R. Fu
Role of convective clouds in the onset of the South America monsoon
Intensification of Summer Rainfall Variability in the Southeastern U.S.
T. Quinn
Extracting climate signals from coral
Paleoclimate proxy perspective on Caribbean climate
T. Shanahan
Sediments as archives of past environmental and paleoclimatic changes on annual
to glacial timescales
Organic and compound-specific stable isotope geochemistry, cosmogenic surface
exposure dating, analysis of
laminated sediments
L. Yang
Modeling the effects of land surface/atmosphere interactions on climate
Downscaling of Future Climate Projection
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Curriculum
A graduate program in Climate System Science (CSS) has recently been
developed at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Geological
Sciences. Because of a strong hiring program, including full professors with
long experience in teaching Climate System Science, the program has quickly
developed and stabilized. We welcome new applicants to our program for the Fall
2009 semester.
Students in the CSS Graduate program select courses from three categories:
1. CSS Integrative Courses
These classes promote an interdisciplinary understanding of the climate system
while retaining a high technical level. They are typically co-taught by 2 CSS
faculty, with both professors present in the classroom for most lectures to
insure continuity.
Two 3-credit introductory courses in Climate Change Dynamics are offered in the
Fall semester:
- Climate Change Dynamics: The Past
- Climate Change Dynamics: The Present and Future
Students entering the CSS Graduate Program generally take both of these classes,
which serve to introduce students to the breadth of the field of Climate System
Science. These classes also serve as a basis for incoming graduate students to
get to know each other and the faculty, and they bring students with diverse
science backgrounds to a uniform academic level in support of subsequent
coursework. Prerequisites for these courses are two semesters of calculus and
one semester each of chemistry and physics, so they are accessible to students
from a wide variety of undergraduate majors.
In addition to the Climate Change Dynamics courses, the following integrative
courses are offered:
- Climate System Dynamics: fluid dynamics applied to the atmosphere, ocean, and
cryosphere
- Climate System Physics: thermodynamics of the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere;
radiation; clouds and precipitation processes; thermohaline circulation and
ocean mixing processes
- Analysis and Interpretation of Climate System Observations and Model Output:
modern observational networks and techniques; time series analysis, uncertainty
evaluation, and statistical analysis of observations and model output
- Global Biogeochemical Cycles: global cycling of carbon, methane, nitrogen,
oxygen; soil formation; ocean salinity chemistry
- Seminar in Climate Change
2. CSS Disciplinary Courses
A series of disciplinary courses compliments the breadth of the integrative
courses. These courses include:
- Climate System Modeling
- Paleoclimatology
- Advanced Atmospheric and Ocean Dynamics
- Tropical Climate and Weather
- Land surface/atmosphere interactions
- Hydroclimatology
- Glaciology: Ice Sheets and Mass Balance
3. Courses outside of the CSS Program offerings
The Department of Geological Sciences contains excellent graduate programs in
Geophysics, Environmental Geology, Paleontology, Petrology and Geochemistry,
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, and Structural Geology and Tectonics in addition
to the Climate System Science Program. These related graduate programs maintain
a substantial curriculum to support the study of the earth system, and CSS
graduate students regularly take courses within these programs. Other related
graduate programs located within the Jackson School of Geosciences and in
related departments add to the opportunities, including the
Energy and Earth
Resources Graduate Program and the
Texas Advanced Computing Center.
CSS students take advantage of strong graduate course offerings throughout this
large university to support their research and enhance an interdisciplinary
perspective. Depending on their interests and long term goals, CSS graduate
students may even chose additional coursework in, and interactions with, the
LBJ
School of Public Affairs and the
McCombs School of Business.
Researchers run climate and hydrogeology models on the computers of the Texas
Advanced Computing Center, including the Lonestar Supercomputer, a cluster
capable of a peak performance of 55.5 Teraflops.
The program operates state of the art equipment for analysis of paleoclimate
proxy records, including ICPMS, TIMS, IRMS, cryogenic magnetometer, laser
ablation and microdrilling tools. Other major equipment includes: an
aerogeophysical system (ice-penetrating radar, laser altimeter, gravity and
magnetics instruments); flumes for physical modeling of sediment transport; an
electron microprobe; SEM; HPLC; gas chromatographs; a carbon analyzer, a
spectrophotometer; and mass spectrometers.
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