One or two graduate students are sought to study the following:

(1) the causes of mid-continent aridity during the mid-Holocene, with emphasis on investigating the role of regional-scale processes such as atmosphere-land cover feedbacks

(2) the sensitivity of California Current seasonality and inter-annual variability to Holocene changes in external climate forcing

(3) Miocene teleconnections between sea surface temperatures and continental precipitation in western North America

(4) the response of severe weather to global climate change

(5) the impacts of global climate change on natural and human systems in the United States

The work at Purdue will focus on configuring, running and analyzing climate model experiments. In addition, the student(s) will have the opportunity to work with researchers at collaborating institutions integrating model output with climate observations.

Students interested in the PhD program are preferred. The student(s) will have the opportunity to participate in Departmental foci in Atmosphere-Surface Interactions and Climate and Extreme Weather, as well as the Purdue Climate Change Research Center.

Interested students should contact Prof. Noah S. Diffenbaugh in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2051, USA (diffenbaugh@purdue.edu).