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Richard Rood

Richard Rood

Richard Rood
Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, College of Engineering and Professor of Environment and Sustainability, School for Environment and Sustainability
Engineering » Climate & Space Sciences
Environment and Sustainability
Engineering

My primary research interests are on the use of information from climate projections for adaptation planning and resource management. I teach a class on climate change and the interface of climate change with all aspects of society. This has evolved into a class on climate change problem solving. This is a graduate class, taught in concert with the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The class includes business students, policy students, as well as students from several science and engineering departments. Students from this class are finding employment in climate-change problem solving with the goal of supporting scientists and practitioners working together.  We are also investigating trends in extreme heat events using quality controlled station observations.  This work is being extended to gridded datasets used in climate-model downscaling.  Our goal is to evaluate how well these gridded datasets represent historical trends and help to describe the uncertainty associated with projections of extreme heat in the future.
My current physical-climate research is focused on bridging the study of weather and climate. My students are currently investigating how the dynamical core used to calculate the fluid flow in weather and climate models influences the spatial structure of  topographic precipitation.  We have continued research on subgrid mixing in the set of dynamical cores supported by the Community Atmosphere Model. Recently we have completed an investigation of low level Arctic clouds and their sensitivity to environmental parameters.

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

My work contributes directly toward solving the United Nations SDGs listed below. Learn more.

4. Quality Education
9. Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
15. Life on Land