Winter Is Coming: Can Homeowners Withstand Another Polar Vortex This Year?

Ryan Sriver

Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ryan L. Sriver is an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining UIUC in 2012, he worked as a research associate in Penn State's Department of Geosciences and as an NOAA Climate and Global Change postdoctoral fellow in Penn State's Department of Meteorology. Ryan graduated from Purdue University with a Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Ryan's research seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the physical processes influencing variability within Earth's climate system and to quantify relevant uncertainties surrounding future climate projections. His work combines observational products, statistical methods and tools, and numerical models spanning a wide range of complexities and scales to understand how extreme weather and climate events are changing with global warming, what are the physical drivers, and what the implications are for natural and human systems. His research interests include climate dynamics, Earth system modeling, ocean-atmosphere interactions, uncertainty and risk, weather and climate extremes, tropical cyclones, sea-level rise, seasonal prediction, and multi-sector dynamics.

Michael Rawlins

Extension Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts; Associate Director, Climate System Research Center

Michael Rawlins' research activities focus on investigations of large-scale hydrology and biogeochemistry. He is interested in how climate processes affect and influence terrestrial water and carbon cycles through synthesis studies which leverage in situ observations, numerical models, and remote sensing data. Through this work, Rawlins seeks to connect and understand water, energy, and carbon cycling across the earth's land, atmosphere, and ocean domains. Most recently, he has investigated recent and potential future change in the Arctic's freshwater cycle and its connections with warming across the region. This work suggests that the Arctic's freshwater cycle is accelerating or "intensifying," consistent with global climate model projections. I also study how a warming climate impacts permafrost and associated cycling of carbon between high-latitude ecosystems and the atmosphere. Closer to home, Michael Rawlins' other research interests center on the use of numerical model depictions of future climatic changes across the Northeast US. Most recently, this work involved outputs from a suite of high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs) which, relative to coupled global climate models, can account for important local influences on climate. Applying these tools, Michael seeks to advance understanding of the effects of climate change across the region, including likely impacts on forests and agriculture, coastal and marine resources, human health, and a host of other important ecosystem services. He is also the manager of the Climate System Research Center, a research facility of the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts.

Dr. James E. Overland

Research Oceanographer

Dr. James E. Overland provides scientific support for decision-makers on climate change and ecosystems in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. He leads projects on historical climate changes, climate and sea ice projections in northern latitudes, ecosystem indices in the Bering Sea, and the Arctic Report Card and Sea Ice Outlook Websites. He contributed to the government response to the Endangered Species Act listings for polar bears, ribbon seals and spotted seals, and to the Arctic Transportation Study. He supports the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee on Arctic Climate Change. Dr. Overland also advises NOAA fisheries managers on climate change issues, which in turn helps set fisheries quotas for the Bering Sea.