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California experienced a siege of storms this month that caused many areas to flood and pushed snowpack levels to record highs. Two Earth and Environmental Sciences professors are available for comment and interviews for stories related to the wet, soggy weather and changing climate of California.

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is the Thonis Family Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences in ������’s College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding the sensitivity of regional rainfall to global climate change. Her work focuses on a paleoclimatic perspective, whereby past instances of climate change can be used as “natural experiments” to understand the response of the atmosphere-ocean system to external forcing.

Bhattacharya would be able to answer your questions and discuss the following points:

• California’s highly variable climate, put into context by its paleoclimatic record
• Predictions that individual storms will become stronger due to warmer atmosphere
• Impact of extra snowpack and higher spring temperatures
• Compounding risks to people living in impacted areas – extreme rain, wildfires, and increased mudslides

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is an Earth and Environmental Sciences assistant professor in ������’s College of Arts and Sciences. As a hydroclimatologist, he studies the distribution of the three phases of water at the Earth’s surface and in the atmo­sphere, and how it affects hydrological, atmospheric, and land surface processes. This includes moisture and energy exchanges, floods and droughts, and their different physical and biological causes and effects. Professor Tuttle is primarily interested in terrestrial water availability, and how it will change across time and space with climate change and land use.

Tuttle would be able to answer your questions and discuss the following points:

• Extreme rain that follows severe drought
• Weather’s impact on groundwater resources
• Below normal reservoir levels
• Spring snowmelt

To request interviews with either professor or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Associate Director of Media Relations
Division of Communications

M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

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