Geeta Persad
Research Interests

Areas of Expertise: Atmospheric Aerosols, Climate Change, Climate Modeling, Air Pollution, Global Hydrologic Cycle, Monsoon Systems, Western U.S. Climate Impacts, Climate Policy and Decision-Making Research Focus: Our research centers on innovative application of numerical global climate modeling to understand the behavior and societal impacts of the physical climate system. The core of our work focuses on the role of particle aerosol emissions, the primary radiative forcing offset to greenhouse gases over the industrial era, in driving inter-regional differences in the magnitude and rate of climate change and in the emergence of heat and hydroclimate extremes. A growing branch of our research applies this understanding of climate physics and modeling to questions at the interface of climate and hydrology, with a goal of understanding the climate shifts most likely to stress water management in the Central and Western U.S. An overarching goal of the lab's work is to understand how climatic change is most likely to stress human systems and how better understanding of these climate stresses in decision-making contexts can improve societal outcomes.