The overall direction of this research is toward increased understanding of interactive processes in the Earth's physical environment and the development of a more coherent picture of its sensitivities to natural and anthropogenic change. The carbon dioxide greenhouse effect is a continuing source of research problems, and one of the most pressing problems is how to determine the onset of a theoretically predicted warming. Both of these topics receive considerable attention from CIRES researchers.
Kris Karnauskas
My lab explores the dynamics of the coupled Earth system toward useful predictions of impacts ranging from marine ecosystems to human health. Specifically, we aim to understand the circuitry of the tropical ocean and atmosphere, its interaction with ecosystems and with higher latitude regions, how and why the climate system has changed in the past, and how climate will continue to change in the future–both naturally and as driven by human activities.
Aaron Sweeney
- Earth science data management and standards
- Tsunami observation, especially coastal water level (tide gauge) and deep-ocean pressure
- Human-computer interaction, especially data visualization
- Seafloor geodesy
Caroline Alden
My work focuses on using trace gas measurements in the atmosphere to address carbon monitoring and carbon-climate mitigation challenges.
At regional to global scales, I use inverse modeling with atmospheric measurements of trace gases and stable isotopes to understand atmosphere-biosphere fluxes and biogeochemical cycling. At local scales, I am developing similar techniques to identify and characterize greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources, for example, methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure.
Carrie Bell
Since 2013, Dr. Carrie Wall has lead the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (then NOAA National Geophysical Data Center located in Boulder, CO) fisheries acoustic archives. These archives encompass water-column sonar data, established in 2014, and passive acoustic data, established in 2017. Carrie and her data management team have established standards-based best practices to describe, submit, ingest, query, and access large volumes of geophysical data enabling the archives to grow rapidly to over 200 TB, mainly from NOAA sources.
