Dr Upmanu Lall

Dr Upmanu Lall
Columbia University
Dept of Earth & Env Eng
500 W 120th
918 Mudd
New York
NY
10027
Fields of interest
Dynamic Risk Modeling of Extreme Precipitation and Floods using a Causal Chain
Description of scientific projects
My current research focuses on understanding and predicting the climate informed causal pathway for extreme storms and rainfall induced flooding as well as droughts at a global scale, and their linkage to dynamic risk assessment and mitigation considering the underlying climate dynamics and its organization at multiple time scales. The recent work in our group focuses on how jet stream dynamics, including Rossby Waves, relates to tropical and extratropical forcing and leads in turn to persistent blocks and troughs that translate into persistence in drought as well as sequences of tropical moisture exports and convergence into areas that then experience extreme precipitation and flooding. The application of these statistical dynamical models to financial and structural risk mitigation strategies covering large scale infrastructure such as a network of dams and levees and supply chains is of interest.