Climate Extremes Across Scales

Research Group of Dr. Danielle Touma, Research Assistant Professor

UT Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin

Research Questions and Topics

How do extreme climate events, including droughts, wildfire risk, extreme precipitation, and compound extremes, like post-fire debris flows, respond to anthropogenic climate change in historic and future climates?

What are the mechanisms underlying extreme climate and compound events, and how do they change?

How are communities impacted by extreme climate events and how are they adapting?

Can climate intervention limit changes in extreme climate events?

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Datasets, Tools, and Methods

Satellite and weather station observations

Earth System Model (ESM) simulations

Spatial statistics, ML, and time series methods

Recent News

October 2024: Tanner presented work from his undergraduate senior capstone project and plans for future work at the UTIG discussion hour! If you missed it, you can catch it here!

September 2024: Our paper "A shifting climate: New paradigms and challenges for (early career) scientists in extreme weather research", led by Dr. Marlene Kretschmer, was published in Atmospheric Science Letters. Read it here!

August 2024: Tanner Johnson joined the group as a PhD student! Tanner's PhD will focus on understanding post-fire hydrologic hazards in a warming climate. He is co-advised by Dr. Joel Johnson and funded by the Blue Sky Student Fellowship. Welcome Tanner!

July 2024: Julia Miller arrived at UTIG as a visiting scholar who will be working on part of her PhD research with the group! Julia is a PhD Candidate at ETH Zurich and her PhD focuses on understanding drivers of European wildfires in recent and future climates. Julia will be here until December!