Daniel Kirk-Davidoff

I am a climate dynamicist with interests in the stratopsheric water vapor budget, paleoclimate modeling, satellite climate monitoring, and the use satellite data to improve climate models. I use climate models to explore the dynamical basis for such fundamental aspects of climate as the pole-to-equator temperature difference, and the mean tropopause height, and to generate and test hypotheses about the connections and feedbacks among tropospheric dynamics, stratospheric overturning, the stratospheric water vapor budget and polar stratospheric clouds. Current GCM modeling projects include a modeling study of the Messinian Desiccation, when the Mediterranean Sea evaporated, 5.8 million years ago, and studies of the impact of future intensive wind farm development on climate. In the area of climate diagnositics, I analyse existing satellite data to find optimal orbits for climate-observing satellites, and design tests of global climate models which are directly relevant to the models' predictions of the sensitivity of the earth's climate to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. I hope this work will reduce our uncertainties about the consequences of our energy-use policies, allowing us to make choices with a clearer view of their consequences.