Steven M. Quiring | Climatologist

Dr. Trent Ford (PI) and I recently received 3 years of funding from NSF Physical and Dynamic Meteorology for a project titled “Improving Process-Level Understanding of Surface-Atmosphere Interactions Leading to Convection Initiation in the Central United States“. This project will assess the nature and strength of soil moisture feedbacks on convective precipitation in the central United States using a coupled observation-modeling framework to examine the physical processes linking the soil and boundary layer atmosphere. The objectives of the project are to: (1) evaluate whether convection occurs preferentially over wet or dry soils in the central United States, (2) quantify the… Read more: New NSF project

I recently presented a seminar at the Department of Geographic and Atmospheric Sciences, Northern Illinois University (October 2020). The talk has been posted on YouTube:

A news article about our research was recently published on drought.gov. It is available here: https://www.drought.gov/drought/news/new-soil-moisture-research-results

EmPOWERment is accepting applications for the 2021-2022 academic year from current and prospective PhD students to The Ohio State University with an interest in sustainable energy. Prospective and first-year PhD students who are accepted into EmPOWERment also will be considered for a highly prestigious and competitive one-year fellowship opportunity funded by National Science Foundation that provides full funding to help support the trainee’s PhD studies and participation in the program. EmPOWERment offers PhD students the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary training in energy-system modeling, data science, energy policy, business, energy technologies, and legal, economic, and social-behavioral issues to address the challenges… Read more: EmPOWERment NSF Research Traineeship Program Fellowship Opportunities

We recently published a paper in Journal of Hydrometeorology. It is available here: https://journals.ametsoc.org/jhm/article/21/9/2157/353954/Evaluating-the-Utility-of-Drought-Indices-as-Soil Abstract: There are a variety of metrics that are used to monitor drought conditions, including soil moisture and drought indices. This study examines the relationship between in situ soil moisture, NLDAS-2 soil moisture, and four drought indices: the standardized precipitation index, the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index, the crop moisture index, and the Palmer Z index. We evaluate how well drought indices and the modeled soil moisture represent the intensity, variability, and persistence of the observed soil moisture in the southern Great Plains. We also apply the drought indices… Read more: Evaluating the Utility of Drought Indices as Soil Moisture Proxies for Drought Monitoring and Land–Atmosphere Interactions