Time: Thursday, October 24, 2019 15:00-16:00
Location: Reception Hall of Main Building, Tsinghua University
Speaker: Dara Entekhabi
Professor of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Member of the National Academy of Engineering

Abstract: The occurrence and movement of water in all its phases (liquid, vapor and solid) is intimately linked to the energy cycle of the climate system. It is also a major factor in several of the global biogeochemical cycles, including Carbon. Variability and change in any one of the cycles affects the others. The strength of the couplings determines the degree of the effects. Current Earth System models have a wide range of prescribed degree of couplings among the cycles that leads to uncertainty in the projection of climate variability and change. In this presentation new measurements from a set of Earth-orbiting satellite instruments are used to form observation-based estimates of coupling among the major global cycles. Implications for the role of the water cycle in the climate system and future regional water availability are addressed in this presentation.

Biography: Dara Entekhabi is the Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering，and also a professor of Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. His research interests are coupled surface, subsurface, and atmospheric hydrologic systems and terrestrial remote sensing. He received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from MIT in 1990. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Source: The Academic Committee of Tsinghua University and Department of Earth System Science