Lab hopes to build ties with undergraduates

Since the 1960s, when GFDL scientists developed the first coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation climate model, researchers have formulated increasingly sophisticated climate predictions. The lab is powered by a supercomputer system using 10,000 processors — each capable of completing 15 million calculations per second.

While GFDL is funded and operated by the U.S. Office of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), it partners closely with faculty and students in the University’s geosciences department.

GFDL’s researchers predict environmental changes and variability by integrating ocean circulation, land, ice, atmospheric circulation and climate phenomena.

Geosciences professor Jorge Sarmiento’s evolution as a researcher at Princeton during the last 32 years is reflected in his current interdisciplinary work. After starting by researching ocean tracers, he has since incorporated biology, geology and chemistry into his work, which now focuses on the carbon cycle.

“My entire research career has been very focused around my interactions with GFDL,” Sarmiento said. “There is an absolute ton of interactions and opportunities that arise from having GFDL here on campus.”

As the director of the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, Sarmiento leads collaborative efforts between GFDL and the University. Faculty co-author nearly 40 percent of the papers produced by GFDL, and graduate students in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) conduct research with NOAA scientists. Undergrads may take 400-level courses with GFDL lecturers, several of whom also advise senior theses.

Sarmiento said that, despite being at the forefront of climate change research, GFDL’s scientists value the opportunity to interact with University students.

“They are a remarkable group of people,” he said. “They are people who come here — as opposed to going to other government laboratories — precisely because they have the opportunity to be involved with educating undergraduate students.”

Sarmiento said that the relationship is one-of-a-kind.

“The fact that we are here is strongly encouraged by the presence of this extraordinary facility. There’s nothing like it on any university campus. It is [one of the] premiere climate prediction facilities in the entire world,” he said.

But, Sarmiento said, he would like the level of collaboration to increase.

“The thing that would really be wonderful is if we could find ways of better incorporating the opportunities that exist here into the undergraduate level ... by bringing more faculty members who are attracted here by the exciting stuff going on,” Sarmiento said. But, he added, “Perhaps undergraduates are not made aware that there is this relationship.”

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Gabriel Lau, the lead scientist of the Climate Diagnostics Group at the GFDL, echoed Sarmiento’s desire to strengthen GFDL’s relationship with students.

“The fact that we are less visible as a result of our distance from the main campus is a challenge,” he said, noting that “many students and faculty members at the University would like to be [involved] with the work that we have done here.”

In recent years, the GFDL has provided research to inform the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. initiative aimed at collating evidence on climate change to catalyze policy response.

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with former vice president Al Gore, following the publication of its fourth report. With the IPCC now moving toward producing its fifth report, government researchers at GFDL and Princeton scientists are again at the forefront.

“Some of us at GFDL and the AOS program, and even Princeton University in general, have contributed to this report,” Lau said. “I think it’s a reflection of the dedication of many scientists all over the world to this problem, and it is a good channel for the science of the GFDL being reported in this document in a very prominent way.”

Sarmiento said that, though scientists at GFDL have benefited from the lab’s proximity to the University, there are still numerous possibilities for collaboration.

“I think that — as much as we enjoy the interactions with the University, and as much as the University in recent years has become extraordinarily more interested in GFDL — there has been an incredible response over time,” Sarmiento said. “We feel that we are just scratching the surface. There are so many opportunities on the policy side where GFDL has a huge potential to make contributions but does not have people in those areas, whereas the University does.”