Alex Hall, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and director of the Center for Climate Change Solutions, received a 2016 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The award recognizes mid-career academic, government and private sector scientists who demonstrate excellence in research and leadership in the fields of the atmospheric and climate sciences.
Hall is an expert on climate modeling, the mechanisms that govern Earth’s climate and the planet’s sensitivity to historical increases in greenhouse gas emissions. The AGU award recognized him for his work in the area known as “climate feedbacks” or “emergent constraints.” Climate feedbacks are the interactions between different climate processes and can either exacerbate or mitigate the Earth’s response to an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. In climate change experiments, global climate models produce a wide range of potential responses. Hall is working to develop ways to constrain the models’ climate feedbacks and uncover more precise findings.