The recent winter storm that led to massive power outages in several states including Texas, Mississippi and Kentucky has raised lots of questions with climate scientists and researchers who study electricity infrastructure. Is this linked to global warming, what may be causing these weather extremes, and can we expect more events like this in the future due to climate change?
If you are exploring any of those topics in the coming days, these three Syracuse University experts may be able to provide insight for your work.
Tripti Bhattacharya
Tripti Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences (College of Arts and Sciences)
Topics of expertise: Extreme weather events, rainfall and climate change, history of global temperatures and warming events, climate models
“My research focuses on understanding the sensitivity of regional rainfall to global climate change. I use a variety of methods, ranging from geochemical and biological proxies to climate models. My work focuses on a paleoclimatic perspective, whereby past instances of climate change can be used as ‘natural experiments’ to understand the response of the atmosphere-ocean system to external forcing. Current projects include analyzing the role of tropical Atlantic variability in forcing Mesoamerican drought, studying the interactions of the midlatitude westerlies and monsoon systems, and analyzing reorganizations of subtropical rainfall during past warm intervals in Earth history.”
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Ethan Coffel
Ethan Coffel, Assistant Professor of Geography and the Environment (Maxwell School)
Topics of expertise: Climate science, climate impacts, extreme weather, energy, infrastructure
Published research this month and has written articles about how global warming will slow electricity output at power plants
“My research uses climate models and large observational datasets to quantify the impacts of climate change on people and the natural ecosystems they depend on, and to better understand the physical mechanisms leading to the intensification of impactful weather and climate events in a warming world.”
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Sara Eftekharnejad
Sara Eftekharnejad, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (College of Engineering)
Topics of expertise: Integration of renewable energy into power systems, power system stability and control, power system reliability and security
“My research focuses on integration of renewable energy resources and power system stability with high penetration of renewables. I investigate how power systems are impacted when various renewables are integrated into systems. I also investigate how power system operation and planning needs to be modified to accommodate more renewables while achieving reliable power systems.
“I also investigate the problems at the intersection of network science theory and power system analysis. This includes identification of critical contingencies and solutions to prevent cascading blackouts.”
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Mark Nevitt
Mark Nevitt, Associate Professor of Law
Topics of expertise: Climate change law, environmental law, national security
Mark Nevitt joined the Syracuse University College of Law as an Associate Professor of Law in fall 2020. At Syracuse, he teaches courses in constitutional law, national security law, environmental law, and climate change law.
Before joining Syracuse University, Nevitt served as the Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Law at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. From 2017-2019 Nevitt served as the Sharswood Fellow, Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught climate change law and policy, and a seminar on national security law and society. He is currently working on projects addressing how climate change is destabilizing numerous areas of law.
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