University of Toronto  |   Physics Department  |   Atmospheric Physics

Research Group

Postdocs and Research Associates

Rosemarie Drummond

Email: rmarie@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: My work is centred around Prof Peltier's ICE-5G model of the last glacial cycle occurring over the last 120,000 years, calculating various effects of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), the earth's response to glacial loading and unloading. We calculate Relative Sea level curves, present-day rates of vertical and horizontal motion, gravity anomalies, polar wander rates, non-tidal acceleration etc due to GIA. Results are compared with observed values. Some products, such as the predicted historical topography and the effect of GIA on present-day rates of sealevel rise are useful to others in the field of climate research.

Stephen Griffiths

Office: McLennan Labs MP704A
Phone: (416) 946-9869
Email: sdg@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca
Webpage: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/~sdg/

Details: Atmosphere/ocean fluid dynamics, instability theory, nonlinear waves and asymptotic methods. Particular interests are waves and inertial instabilities in the equatorial atmosphere, and the modelling of tides and the internal tide in the ocean.

William Hyde

Email: whyde@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: My main area of research concerns the glacial cycles of the Phanerozoic and late Precambrian. Work by Berner and others (GEOCARB) on CO2 levels and by Chris Scotese (Paleomap Project) on paleotopography, has given us the necessary inputs for a quantitative model study of these distant eras and to test not only our models, but to use our models, in turn, to examine the consistency of our various paleoclimatic data sets with one another, as in our June 2006 Geology paper. A secondary area of research involves the use of models and data to estimate the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2.

Marc d'Orgeville

Office: McLennan Labs MP609
Phone: (416) 946-3019
Email: marcdo@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: My current research interests are in climate modeling, low-frequency ocean variability and wave dynamics. It involves analysis of observations and/or GCM output as well as idealized analytical and/or numerical models.

Gordan Stuhne

Office: McLennan Labs MP609
Phone: (416) 946-3019
Email: gordan@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca
Webpage: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/gordan/

Details: My current research interests relate to atmospheric and oceanic fluid dynamics, with particular emphasis on numerical algorithms and model development. Specific topics include the application of unstructured and block-structured triangular grid methods to ocean and tidal simulation. In other work I have also studied jet and vortex dynamics on the Jovian planets, as well as marine plankton clustering.

Lev Tarasov

Email: lev@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca
Webpage: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/lev/lev.html

Details: General interest: Earth System Science and analysing and modelling the dynamics of complex non-linear physical systems. Current research focus: analysing, modelling, and constraining the dynamics of the glacial climate system over the last glacial cycle and into the future.

Guido Vettoretti

Office: McLennan Labs MP610
Phone: (416) 946-7086
Email: guido@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca
Webpage: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/guido/guido.html

Details: My research focuses on the numerical modelling of past climate regimes and long term climate change. In particular, I have been interested in the nature of the glacial-interglacial cycles that have characterized the dominant mode of climatic variability over the past million years. Understanding the complex interactions that have occurred and that may occur in the Earth's climate requires a detailed understanding of the non-linear behaviour of the climate system under a wide range of external and internal forcing. My research is intimately connected with the validation of model simulations of paleoclimate to verify the study of future anthropogenic induced climate change.

Graduate Students

Ding Li

Office: McLennan Labs MP704A
Phone: (416) 946-0869
Email: dingli@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: My current research focuses on global climate modeling. I am interested in simulating ice sheet and sea level changes through global warming, by using 3D global climate model (CCSM3) coupled with some regional climate models.

Yonggang Liu

Office: McLennan Labs MP710
Phone: (416) 978-5213
Email: ygliu@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: I have been working on global mantle convection for two and a half years but just recently I am more interested in climate modeling. Currently I am simulating the glacial events during the Neoproterozoic Era, which could have produced the most extensive ice cover of the Earth surface. We believe that the periodicity or the recurrence of these events are explainable by the global CO2 cycle.

Constantine Nenkov

Office: McLennan Labs MP609
Phone: (416) 946-3019
Email: nenkov@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca
Webpage: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/nenkov/nenkov.html

Details: My current research interests are in the field of Planetary Science, and in particular the study and modeling of the atmospheres of gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. To this end, for the last couple of years I have been developing and implementing a fully 3D Atmospheric Global Circulation Model (AGCM). This model is built around novel numerical methodology and uses icosahedral spatial grid structure. One important feature of this approach is that it allows for better representation of the physical fields in the polar regions, which is also one of the goals of the current Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan. I use this model to simulate and hopefully better understand various features in the dynamics of the gaseous envelopes in this class of gas giant planets.

Xiaolu Yu

Office: McLennan Labs MP710
Phone: (416) 978-5213
Email: yuxiaolu@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

Details: My current reseach focuses on present day climate simulation using fully coupled global climate model, especially the importance of aerosol forcing in hemispheric climate sensitivity. I am also interested in sea ice and ice sheet response to global climate change as well as the involved feedback mechanism.

Staff

Fatima Ijaz

Office: McLennan Labs MP716A
Phone: (416) 978-2933
Email: fatima.ijaz@utoronto.ca

Details: Administrative Assistant for Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Physics Group