I research the temperature dependence of the processes that determine the Earth’s climate. This temperature dependence could cause the Earth’s sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions to increase rapidly as global warming unfolds. This rapid increase is difficult to model properly, creating a potential selection bias in projections of future warming. On the flip side, this temperature dependence, in conjunction with paleoclimate records, could imply that present day sensitivity is relatively small. I seek to estimate this temperature dependence by using physical models of climate and observations of the Earth’s past (especially the hothouse climates prevalent in the early Cenozoic), and then to use these estimates to better predict future climate. I have secondary interests in the agricultural impacts of future climate and atmospheric/oceanic data analysis.
Scholars / Scholars
Jonah Bloch-Johnson
Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago