On April 2, 2018, Sudarshana was awarded second position in the CCEE Departmental Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Full news on the event is here. Below is her presentation and full transcript.
3MT presentation
How do we prepare for a world where extremes are the new normal? Where extreme weather events, like hurricanes and droughts, are occurring more frequently. Where we see the city of Cape Town counting down its days till it becomes the world's first major city to go completely waterless. Within the next 30 years, 70 percent of U.S. counties could face water shortage because of climate change. Understanding water resources system behavior under severe climate conditions is imperative for our survival.
For that, engineers need reliable climate forecasts. Depending on the operational decisions they want to make, they need these forecasts over different time spans — called forecast lead time. Current scientific tools are excellent for short-range forecasts, like cyclones and hurricanes, and they perform well for seasonal prediction, like average temperature or rainfall over the next three to six months. In between, at the sub-seasonal timescale — spanning two to twelve weeks — current forecasting techniques are not at all reliable, because we don't yet understand the complex global climate conditions dominant at this time scale.
This is where my research comes in. I'm trying to bridge this gap using a statistical model that looks at the probability of getting different amounts of water in a region depending on various combinations of climate conditions that play a key role at the two-to-twelve-week timescale. By considering this, I'm trying to identify those complex climate processes — and, most importantly, their interaction — that make sub-seasonal weather prediction so challenging. Using this knowledge, one can identify which climate conditions need to be addressed for which month and at what time scale.
This study will be highly beneficial for sectors where operational decisions must be made over a two-to-twelve-week window — agricultural water supply, water allocation during drought, flood control, planning for spikes in energy demand, preventing the spread of an epidemic, and more. Better management plans in these sectors translate directly into better preparedness for severe conditions under climate change. Through my research, I believe I'm helping the world prepare for a future when "extremes" are likely to become the new normal.