Mark Merrifield
University of California-San Diego, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
Extreme heat waves are a growing health threat, and in coastal Southern California the ocean helps shape when and how they strike. This collaborative hub studies how the ocean, atmosphere and land interact to drive coastal heat waves now and in the future.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
Social Science
- Topics
heat waves
extreme heat
coastal clouds
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Clarify how coastal cloud processes interact with marine and land heat waves in Southern California, as part of studying how the ocean, atmosphere and land combine to drive extreme heat.
- Create a data product that resolves the weather patterns that influence heat waves in coastal regions.
- Examine how heat waves affect people's health through environmental epidemiology research in coastal Southern California.
- Study how interactions among plants, water resources and climate change affect greening zones, and work with non-academic partners to assess equitable, sustainable heat adaptation strategies.
More about the research
It gives special attention to coastal clouds. It also asks how heat waves affect human health and how communities can adapt fairly, for example by adding plants and green spaces.
Why it matters
Coastal communities in Southern California, and people especially vulnerable to extreme heat, could benefit from better understanding of how ocean-driven heat waves form and harm health. City planners and local agencies could use the hub's data and co-produced findings to design greening and other heat adaptation strategies that are fair and sustainable. The approaches may transfer to other coastal regions worldwide.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lantao Sun
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how much Arctic sea ice loss affects summer atmospheric circulation and the jet stream, and through what mechanisms, using DAMIP and PAMIP climate model simulations.
Da Yang
University of California-Davis, CA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Test whether vapor buoyancy, the lift that moist air gets from water vapor's light molecular mass, warms the dry regions of the tropical atmosphere, using satellite observations and numerical simulations.
Deepti Singh
Washington State University, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how atmosphere, ocean and land-surface conditions, including El Niño Southern Oscillation and unusual soil moisture, influence the extent, frequency, persistence and amplitude of ridges over western North America, using observations and CMIP6 simulations.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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