Terrestrial Planetary Atmospheres and Climate Extremes

Welcome!  Our research focuses on the atmospheric dynamics and climate of terrestrial planets, with particular focus on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and Earth, both now and throughout history.  We use a broad variety of tools and methods including satellite and ground-based data, pencil-and-paper theory, and numerical simulations.  Our unifying theme – TPACE – is to understand the extremes of atmospheres and climate by drawing analogies between the planetary bodies of our solar system, and "filling the gaps" between them in parameter space using a hierarchy of climate models.  Our current projects focus on the transition of an Earth-like climate to a Titan-like climate, which we accomplish by varying the planetary rotation rate, voltatility of water vapor, and global reservoir of water in the climate system.  This project is funded by NSF's Climate and Large-Scale Dynamics, and supports two graduate students, Matthew McKinney and Francico Spaulding-Astudillo, and myself.