Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Distinguished Lecture Series: Dr. Graeme L Stephens

Friday December 2 2016 @ 4:00 pm

December

2

Fri

2016

4:00 pm

Event Type
DLS
Availability

Open to Public

Audience
  • CIRES employees
  • CIRES families
  • CU Boulder employees
  • General Public
  • NOAA employees
  • Science collaborators
  • Host
    CIRES

    Due to important personal matters that have come up for Dr. Stephens, the DLS Committee recommended that he postpone his talk at this time. The talk for December 2nd has been canceled; no date has been rescheduled at this time.

     

    The mysterious Earth - how Earth observations contributes to our understanding of Earth system and the Grand Science Challenges 

    by Dr. Graeme L Stephens - Director Center for Climate Sciences, JPL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

    Abstract: How much will the Earth warm in the coming decades? How will the Earth’s hydrological cycle and major storm systems change in response to the projected warming? These questions are timely and societally important to address. They also represent basic science challenges confronting our understanding of the evolving Earth System. Addressing these questions involves understanding of the processes that couple water cycle and energy producing the critical feedbacks that govern the response of the Earth system to a global warming. This talk will describe advances in understanding these feedbacks derived from observations obtained from Earth orbiting satellites and address how and where heat is being absorbed by Earth, and how the hydrological of the planet is changing.

    Bio: Dr. Graeme Stephens completed his B.S. with honors from the University of Melbourne in 1973 and received his Ph.D. in 1977 from the same university. He was appointed to the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research in 1977 as a research scientist and promoted to senior research scientist in 1982. From 1979 to 1980, Professor Stephens served as a post-doctoral research student at the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science. He joined the faculty as an associate professor in 1984 and was promoted to full professor in 1991.

    Dr. Stephens' research activities focus on atmospheric radiation including the application of remote sensing in climate research to understand the role of hydrological processes in climate change. He also serves as the primary investigator (PI) of the NASA CloudSat Mission and associated research group which has launched a satellite to study the internals of clouds using equipment similar to radar.