News
On 27 February, former group member (and now Assistant Professor at Northeastern University) Chengfei He’s paper was published in Nature Communications entitled, “Climate models exaggerate greenhouse gas impact on recent interhemispheric temperature patterns and tropical climate.” Congrats, Chengfei!
On 18 February, Chelone Laws’ poster presentation at the AMS Annual Meeting won a 2nd place student presentation prize. Congrats, Chelone!
On 26–30 January, everyone in the Tropical Climate Dynamics research group – Alex G., Fouzia, Chelone, and Alex K. presented their research at the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting in Houston, TX. Alex G. orally presented results from his recently published paper on the double ITCZ bias entitled, “We need to simulate more northern ITCZs and…
On January 14th, Alex traveled to Dallas, TX to present his research at a WHOI Dallas Chapter event. The title of his talk was, “How oceanic clouds shape our weather”. He spoke about his research on tropical rainfall and clouds and how moisture originating from the tropical east Pacific Ocean and the Gulf/Atlantic Ocean impacted…
On January 13th, Alex was selected to become the next co-chair of the U.S. CLIVAR Process Study and Model Improvement Panel. Alex will serve a two-year term beginning in March 2026. Congrats, Alex!
On December 17th, Alex G, Fouzia, Alex K, and Indrani all co-authored a paper entitled, “We Need to Simulate More Northern ITCZs and Less Southern ITCZs Over the East Pacific Ocean in Coupled Climate Models” in the Journal of Geophphysical Research: Atmospheres: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JD043650.
On December 14th, Chelone traveled to New Orleans, LA to attend the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting to present her WHOI SSF and NSF SOARS summer research entitled, “The Effect of Upper Ocean Freshwater on the Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Lee.”
On December 2nd, Alex hosted the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar at Boston College. The title of his talk was, “Unraveling the Building Blocks of Inaccurate Rainfall Predictions over the Tropical Pacific Ocean.”
On 14 November, Alex K.’s WHOI Innovative Technology Program proposal was funded. Congrats, Alex!
On 14 November, Alex G. was selected to serve a two-year term as a committee member of the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship Program for the Department of Physical Oceanography. Congrats, Alex!
On September 15th, Alex hosted the Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences Lunch Bunch Seminar at Brown University. The title of his talk was, “We need to simulate more northern ITCZs and less southern ITCZs over the east Pacific Ocean in coupled climate models.”
On August 7th, Chelone presented her WHOI Summer Student Fellowship program summer research entitled, “The Effect of Upper Ocean Freshwater on the Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Lee” at WHOI in Woods Hole, MA. Congrats on a wonderful summer, Chelone!
On August 3rd, Alex traveled to The University at Albany to attend the 11th Northeast Tropical Workshop in Albany, NY. Alex presented his work entitled, “We need to simulate more double ITCZs and less southern ITCZs in reanalyses and coupled climate models,” and he chaired the Tropical Cyclones and Climate session. More information is here:…
On July 28th and 31st, Chelone Laws presented her NSF Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program summer research entitled, “The Effect of Upper Ocean Freshwater on the Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Lee” at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. Congrats on a wonderful summer, Chelone!
From July 20–23, Alex participated in the bi-annual U.S. CLIVAR Summit in Boulder, Colorado. At the Summit, Alex co-chaired the session entitled, “The Tropical ASTZ and its Impact on Climate Extremes.”
Alex’s wins WHOI Independent Study Award on the impact of cloud-related factors on tropical rainfall
On May 29th, 2025, Alex had a WHOI Independent Study Award proposal funded. The title of the project is “The impact of cloud-related factors on Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) biases in atmospheric reanalysis data.” The funding goes from June 2025 through May 2027. Congrats, Alex!
On May 20th, 2025, Chelone Laws arrived at WHOI to start her summer research project in Woods Hole as part of WHOI’s Summer Student Fellowship and the NSF Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) programs. Chelone’s project is focused on using satellite-based and Argo float data to understand how upper ocean fresh layers…
On May 15th, 2025, Alex presented his research at the WHOI Board of Trustees and Members of the Corporation Joint Meeting. His presentation was entitled, “The Interconnections between Clouds, Storms, and Rainfall over the Ocean.” Alex discussed his group’s work on low clouds, the ITCZ, and education using rotating tanks efforts (in collaboration with the…
On March 26th, Alex traveled to New York City to host seminars at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the City College of New York. Both talks were entitled, “We need to simulate more double ITCZs and less southern ITCZs in reanalyses and coupled climate models.”
From March 10–25, Alex wrapped up the last intensive observing period of weather balloon launches for the 3rd Wind Forecast Improvement Project (https://www2.whoi.edu/site/wfip3/). We would like to thank the approximately 60 local volunteers who helped with the field operations, both in Woods Hole and on ships transecting the offshore area south of Cape Cod.