Charlotte Demott
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Tropical weather and climate depend on the ocean feeding heat and moisture into the atmosphere. That energy fuels towering storm clouds, which in turn drive large-scale winds and rainfall.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
- Topics
air-sea interaction
rain layers
cold lid
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Test how rain-formed cold lids on the ocean delay and then intensify tropical storms and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, by comparing regional atmosphere-ocean simulations with the lid active or disabled.
- Determine whether cold-lid intensification of MJO westerly wind bursts affects El Niño development, using CESM with a new ocean surface flux parameterization, including higher-carbon-dioxide runs.
- Examine how moist energy carried from the northern ITCZ and reduced stratus cloud cover weaken the trade wind inversion, a stabilizing atmospheric layer, during seasonal southeast Pacific ITCZ formation.
- Analyze momentum budgets in observations and Community Atmosphere Model experiments to test whether downward momentum transport across the trade wind inversion turns surface winds from divergent to convergent.
More about the research
The lab's two projects examine how conditions near the ocean surface and in the lower atmosphere can block or release this exchange. They ask how that shapes major tropical climate patterns, which climate models often simulate poorly. Both projects rely on climate model simulations, including the Community Earth System Model (CESM), a widely used global climate model.
Why it matters
The MJO and El Niño affect how often hurricanes and atmospheric rivers reach the United States. Many models simulate the MJO as too weak and too fast, and most show a false double ITCZ for much of the year. Identifying missing processes, such as rain layers and the trade wind inversion, could improve weather prediction and climate projections that communities rely on.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: The Relationship between the Trade Wind Inversion Layer and the Seasonal Development of the Southeast Pacific Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)
NSF · Jul 2023 – Jun 2027
The Upscaling of Tropical Pacific Ocean Rain Layers to Convection and Modes of Pacific Climate Variability
NSF · Apr 2024 – Mar 2027
Closest labs
Andrea Jenney
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether the net cooling cloud radiative effect over oceanic ITCZs comes partly from differences in energy carried away by ocean circulation between stormy and calm regions, using reanalyses and CESM2 slab-ocean simulations.
Gregory Jenkins
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Project how Saharan dust emission and transport across West Africa and the Atlantic will change over the 21st century, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional model with the GOCART dust module driven by CMIP5 global climate simulations under three emission scenarios.
Angel Adames-Corraliza
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Test whether colder lower-stratospheric temperatures during the easterly QBO phase strengthen the MJO by promoting cirrus clouds and their infrared radiative feedback, using COSMIC, CALIPSO and MLS satellite data plus reanalyses.
The school
Colorado State University-Fort Collins: 23 labs on PI Pages, $466M a year on research, 276 research doctorates a year.
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