Howard J. Diamond, Ph.D.

  • ARL Climate Science Program Manager
  • US Climate Program Manager (USCRN)
  • US National Coordinator for the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)

Programs: US Climate Reference Network, GCOS

Contact:

howard.diamond@noaa.gov

Current Research

  • Sustained In-Situ Climate Observing – Nationally and Globally
  • Tropical Cyclone Climatology in the SW Pacific and Globally
  • Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Climatology
  • Relationship of climate phenomena to large-scale atmospheric teleconnections including ENSO, Madden-Julian Oscillation, Southern Annular Mode, and Pacific Decadal Oscillation

 

Education

University of Auckland, New Zealand, Ph.D., Geography and Environmental Science, 2014

University of Maryland, M.S., Management, 1994

Florida State University, B.S., Biological Sciences, 1981

Professional Experience

Climate Science Program Manager, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, 2017 to present

Adjunct Research Associate, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2014 to present

Climate Scientist and Program Manager, National Environmental Satellite, Data,
and Information Service, 1999 to 2017

Program Manager, National Weather Service, 1986 to 1999

Cartographer, National Ocean Service, 1981 to 1986

More about my research

Climate change has significant effects on all sectors of society. It is not just about rising air temperatures and global warming, but a warming atmosphere has been shown to have tremendous effects on ecosystems, the transmission of disease, human infrastructure, transfer of that heat to the oceans, and economic viability. Therefore, it is of vital importance that science attempt to better understand, as thoroughly as possible, how climate change is impacting what are described as normal conditions, and what the statistically significant deviations or anomalies for various factors are, and how they may or may not be directly related to the more overarching issue of global climate change.

Questions related to this include but are not limited to investigating whether:

  1. Events such as rainstorms, droughts, and heatwaves longer and/or more severe
  2. Impacts from melting land ice affecting not only sea-levels and the salinity of oceans, but is that infusion of freshwater have affects on global circulation patterns that impact weather events (e.g., the well-publicized Polar Vortex from the boreal winter of 2015/16 that had major impacts on North American weather patterns)
  3. Background changes in the state of the environment are affecting the behavior and characteristics of tropical cyclones
  4. A warming ocean having impacts on the migration and economic viability of fisheries (e.g., the New England and Canadian lobster industry)

The ability to monitor changes in variables such as sea surface and sub-surface ocean temperature; sea ice extent and thickness; sea-level heights; and the behavior of tropical cyclones, and how these changes may be related to large-scale global phenomena such as ENSO are therefore a critical piece in the overall fabric of climate change research being conducted by literally thousands of climate scientists across the globe.

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5026-0167