Elizabeth Cassano

Senior Associate Scientist

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Cassano is a Senior Associate Scientist affiliated with NSIDC, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the Department of Atmospheric Science (ATOC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research is focused on Arctic synoptic climatology and putting individual weather and extreme events in climatological context. She also evaluates the climatology of Arctic cyclones and their impacts on the surface state.

Specialties

Polar weather and climate, synoptic climatology, self-organizing maps, extreme events, Arctic cyclones

Current Research

Understanding the Role of Arctic Cyclones - A System Approach: Cyclones (storms) in the Arctic play a critical role in the Arctic climate system. They transport heat and moisture from lower latitudes, impact cloud cover and precipitation, and alter sea ice and ocean state. This project creates a climatology of Arctic cyclones and assesses the impact that these cyclones have on the Arctic atmosphere, sea ice and ocean. Analysis of Arctic cyclones and sea ice from the past 40 years shows links between changes in sea ice cover and storm intensity. Ongoing work uses a fully coupled regional Arctic system model (RASM) to investigate the impact of cyclones on Arctic sea ice. Cassano is also analyzing projections of Arctic cyclones, from an ensemble of CMIP6 models, to determine how Arctic cyclones will change over the 21st century in response to global climate change. Source of support: NSF

Education

M.S., University of Wyoming, 1998
B.S., Purdue University, 1995
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Contact

303-492-0281