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GISS
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Research Interests: Past and future climate changes, climate modeling,
stratospheric processes, solar-climate studies, sea ice, land
surface effects, remote sensing.
The Earth's
climate represents a holistic system, with mutually interacting
components ranging through a host of specialized sub-disciplines.
Rarely are there simple answers to climate problems, as the multiple
feedbacks can lead to a variety of results. Therefore, to understand
what has happened in the past, and what will happen as greenhouse
gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, requires a familiarity
with the various aspects of the system, utilizing everything we
have available – observations, theory, and computer modeling.
It requires interacting with atmospheric scientists, oceanographers,
specialists in polar processes, cloud physicists, hydrologists,
land surface biologists, atmospheric chemists, computer scientists,
etc. To understand the potential impacts of climate change requires
further interactions, with agronomists, economists, demographic
specialists, etc. As you can see, the climate system and climate
change is a great integrator of knowledge, and requires a multi-disciplinary
approach.
In my research
it is necessary to become familiar with these various disciplines
and put the knowledge into common form, via building and utilizing
climate models. Such models can be used to study why the Last
Ice Age arose, why the dinosaurs disappeared, and where would
be the best place to live in 2100, climatically-speaking. The
fact that as of yet we do not have convincing answers to any of
these questions should only serve as motivation - one wouldn't
want to enter a field in which everything is known! Climate studies
represent an exciting and highly topical challenge, and what we
learn can affect public policy and mankind directly.
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SELECTED
PUBLICATIONS: |
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Rind, D.,
2002: The Sun's role in climate variations. Science 296, 673-678.
Rind, D.,
J. Lerner and C. McLInden, 2001: Changes of tracer distributions
in the doubled CO2 climate. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 28061-28079.
Rind, D.,
P. DeMenocal, G. Russell, S. Sheth, D. Collins, G. Schmidt and
J. Teller, 2001: Effects of glacial meltwater in the GISS Coupled
Atmosphere-Ocean Model: Part I: North Atlantic Deep Water response.
J. Geophys. Res. 106, 27335-27354. Part II: A bipolar seesaw in
Atlantic deep water production. J. Geophys. Res.106, 27355-27367
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