American Geophysical Union experts available to comment on science of heat waves

11 July 2017

WASHINGTON, DC — Heat waves have already led to record-high temperatures in parts of the United States this summer, and more scorching temperatures are expected. Several American Geophysical Union scientists are available throughout the summer and fall to comment on the science of heat waves and their possible impacts on humans and ecosystems, including the physical mechanisms behind heat waves, connections between climate change and extreme weather, and heat wave effects on water resources and public health.

Kate Evans leads the Computational Earth Sciences Group as part of the Computational Science and Engineering Division and the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She develops global climate models to use the world’s largest supercomputers and evaluates their fidelity to capture climate behavior at many scales. With these models, she studies the connections between global climate, weather anomalies and sea level rise.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (865) 576-6517
Note: Kate Evans will be unavailable July 29 – August 5 and September 9 – 16.

Jennifer Francis is a Research Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She has taught courses in satellite remote sensing and climate-change issues and also co-founded and co-directed the Rutgers Climate and Environmental Change Initiative. Presently she studies the Arctic climate system and connections between climate change and extreme weather.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (732) 688-2382
Note: Jennifer Francis will be unavailable July 29 – August 7 and September 10 – 16.

Alexander (Sasha) Gershunov is a Research Meteorologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on interrelated aspects of weather, climate and society. His professional interests include understanding the links between regional weather extremes and large-scale climate variability and change, extreme weather and climate impacts on wildfire, energy, ecosystems, water resources and public health, climate influence on society and human influence on climate.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (858) 336-2516

Radley Horton is an Associate Research Professor of ocean and climate physics at Lamont Doherty Earth Institute of Columbia University in New York. His areas of expertise and interest include changes in the statistics of heat waves, physical mechanisms behind heat waves and societal impacts ranging from public health to infrastructure.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (646) 320-9938

Ben Zaitchik is an Associate Professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He works on understanding, managing, and coping with climate and water variability, including atmospheric dynamics and local land characteristics associated with extreme heat events.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (410) 375-4814
Note: Ben Zaitchik will be unavailable July 21 – August 8.

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