Dr. Robert Korty

Research Interests

Our group works on climate dynamics, which include applications to past, present, and future climate states. One of our current projects focuses on tropical cyclone activity across climate—from ice ages to very hot states. We study the thermodynamic properties and stability of the tropical atmosphere and how its evolution affects the suitability of the environment that spawns tropical storms. Part of this effort involves studying model-generated cyclones in different climates, both the statistical properties of the collection of vorticies in global models as well as higher resolution weather models applied to paleoclimates. Our primary goal is to use this information to better understand how storms fundamentally depend on properties of the underlying environment in which they live.

We are also currently performing some simulations of the early Cenozoic ocean circulation to compare with data derived from cores drilled from the bottom of the world's oceans. Geochemical analysis of these cores has yielded evidence that the source of deep water formation may have shifted during the Eocene epoch. We are working with Deborah Thomas in Oceanography to compare model simulations with the inferences drawn from these cores.

Selected Publications

• Zedler, S., Kanschat, G., Hoteit, I., and Korty, R. 2013: Estimation of the drag coefficient from the upper ocean response to a hurricane: a variational data assimilation approach. Ocean Modelling, in press.
• Korty, R. 2013.  Hurricanes.  In Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards, P. Bobrowsky, editor, Springer, in press.
• Korty, R., Camargo, S., and Galewsky, J. 2012: Variations in tropical cyclone genesis factors in simulations of the Holocene epoch. J. Climate 25, 8196-8211.
• Korty, R., Camargo, S., and Galewsky, J. 2012: Tropical cyclone genesis factors in simulations of the last glacial maximum. J. Climate 25, 4348-4365.
• Hague, A., Thomas, D., Huber, M., Korty, R., Woodard, S., and Jones, L. 2012. Convection of North Pacific deep water during the early Cenozoic. Geology 40, 527-530.
• Zedler, S., Kanschat, G., Korty, R., and Hoteit, I. 2012. A new approach for the determination of the drag coefficient from the upper ocean response to a tropical cyclone: a feasibility study.  J. Oceanography 68, 227-241.
• Pauluis, O., Czaja, A., and Korty, R. 2010. The global atmospheric circulation in moist isentropic coordinates. J. Climate 23, 3077-3093.
• Korty, R.L., and Schneider, T. 2008. The extent of Hadley circulations in dry atmospheres. Geophysical Research Letters 35, L23803, doi:10.1029/2008GL035847.  (Click here for the Editor's Highlight.)
• Pauluis, O., Czaja, A., and Korty, R. 2008: The global atmospheric circulation on moist isentropes. Science 321, 1075-1078.  (Click here for the Editor's summary.)
  
• Korty, R. L., Emanuel, K.A., and Scott, J.R. 2008. Tropical cyclone-induced upper ocean mixing and climate: application to equable climates. J. Climate 21, 638-654.  (Featured in the "Editors' Choice" in the March 7, 2008 issue of Science.)
• Korty, R. L., and Schneider, T. 2007. A climatology of the tropospheric thermal stratification using saturation potential vorticity. J. Climate 20, 5977-5991.
• Korty, R. L., and Emanuel, K.A. 2007. The dynamic response of the winter stratosphere to an equable climate surface temperature gradient. J. Climate 20, 5213-5228.
• Emanuel, K., DesAutels, C., Holloway, C., and Korty, R. 2004. Environmental control of tropical cyclone intensity. J. Atmos. Sci. 61, 843-851.