David Battisti's research is focused on understanding the natural
variability of the climate system. He is especially interested in
understanding how the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, land
and sea ice lead to variability in climate on time scales from
seasonal to decades. His previous research includes coastal
oceanography, the physics of the El Nino/Southern Osciallation (ENSO)
phenomenon, midlatitude atmosphere/ocean variability and variability in
the coupled atmosphere/sea ice system in the Arctic. Battisti is
presently working to improve the El Nino models and their forecast skill,
the drought cycles in the Sahel, and the decade-to-decade changes in the
climate of the Pacific Northwest, including how the latter oscillations
affect the snow pack in the Cascades and coastal ranges from Washington
to Alaska. He is also working on the impacts of climate variability and
climate change on food production in Mexico and Indonesia.
Battisti's recent interests are in paleoclimate: in particular, the
mechanisms responsible for the remarkable "abrupt" global climate changes
evident throughout the last glacial period.
Battisti has served on numerous international science panels, on
Committees of the National Research Council. He is co-chair of
the
Science Steering Committee for the U.S. Program on Climate (US
CLIVAR) and is co-author of several international science plans.
He
has published over 50 papers in peer-review journals in atmospheric
sciences and oceanography, and twice been awarded distinguished
teaching awards.
Full Vitae is available here: Vitae (postscript)