UCSB’s Langan puts prediction front and center
Gil Weigand and Roisin Langan
Roisin Langan, an intern at ORNL, spent last summer developing climate models that are better able to predict the variability and extremes of precipitation. Her project titled “Stochastic Representation of Unresolved Processes in Climate Models” won the best abstract award at the Research Alliance in Math and Science (RAMS) banquet, a student poster session held at ORNL on August 8.
Research in this field could result in more accurate warning systems for extreme events, such as flooding, droughts, and heat waves. In the face of extreme weather, it could help stakeholders plan economic and humanitarian relief efforts.
“This experience helped me gain invaluable networking channels, experience and instruction in effective scientific communication,” said Langan, a recent graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Richard Archibald and Kate Evans of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute mentored Langan, who analyzed data generated on the OLCF’s Titan supercomputer. Langan is now an intern through ORNL’s Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory Synthesis program and hopes to enter a graduate program in computational science in fall 2014.—by Jennifer Brouner
