Climate-related Research
   

Research topics:

  • The application of feedback analysis tools from control-engineering, e.g. to analyze the feedback between the thermohaline circulation and the wind-driven circulation in the North Atlantic.

  • System identification tools from control-engineering, applied to climate systems, and to the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in particular.  This provides a mechanism both for better understanding the Earth's climate system, and for comparing the dynamics of the real world with models at a mechanistic level rather than simply at the behavioural level.

  • The dynamics of intentional climate intervention, for ENSO as an example, and for planet-scale geo-engineering (solar radiation management).  First paper demonstrating that control of El Nino is within the scale of human action; the intent here is not to suggest that this is a good idea, but rather to change our perceptions about the scale of human influence on the climate. 

  • Understanding how to develop robust feedback control strategies for high-dimensional, fundamentally nonlinear fluid systems; current research joint with Prof. Tim Colonius is in the context of flow control (e.g. fluid separation), but is relevant to understanding dynamics of intervention in the climate system.

  • I am also fascinated by the question of why people are so averse to believing in basic physics, but that isn't a subject I do research on...


Relevant Publications: