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EPP Post Doctoral Fellow



Iris Grossmann

Iris Grossmann
Office: Baker Hall 129F
Phone: (412) 268-5489
Email: irisg@andrew.cmu.edu

Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Climate Decision Making Center
Department of Engineering and Public Policy

Climate risks and impacts of natural variability and climate change; climate uncertainty and decision making; energy policy.

Education

2005, Ph.D. in Geosciences/Meteorology: University of Hamburg and International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modeling

2001, M.S degree in Mathematics (German: Diplom) with minor in Operations Research: University of Hamburg, Germany

1998, Vordiplom (German undergraduate degree) in Mathematics with minor in Physics: University of Hamburg, Germany

Research

Climate risks and uncertainty
Climate risks of particular interest are hurricanes and floods, droughts and changes in water supply, and changes in Arctic sea ice.
Losses from hurricanes in the US have grown dramatically in the past few decades. Contributing factors are the growing concentration of people and value in areas at risk, a natural large-scale shift in the Atlantic atmosphere-ocean environment in the mid 1990s, and potentially global warming. My work focuses on assessing and projecting the effect of these factors and exploring possibilities to prepare for changing hurricane risks. Current projects investigate trends and data problems in Atlantic hurricane data (in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon Statistics) and project long-term scenarios of changes in hurricane risk to inform possible long-term flood insurance policies (in collaboration with Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Wharton Risk Center, University of Pennsylvania).
My work on changes in water supply currently focuses on precipitation and drought in the US Southwest. Of particular interest is the combined effect of global warmimg and large-scale natural Pacific and Atlantic climate patterns on rainfall and temperature.

Energy Policy
I collaborate with the Wegener Center at the University of Graz, Austria and the International Center of Climate and Society at the University of Hawaii, Manoa on the investigation of economic risks due to uncertain emissions policies and the uncertain development of socio-economic factors on which required emissions reductions and their costs depend. We also work on criteria to evaluate the feasibility of specific renewable energy technologies.

Professional Experience

2007-present: Postdoctoral research fellow, Climate Decision Making Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

7/06-1/07: Postdoctoral research fellow, Institute of Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht, Germany

Fall 2006: Lecturer, M.S. Program in Environmental Management, University of Kiel, Germany

Spring 2006: Visiting lecturer, Institute of Social Ecology, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research and Education, University of Vienna, Austria

1/06-7/06: Research Associate, Institute of Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht, Germany

2/02-9/05: Assistant Scientist, Institute of Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht, Germany

Peer-reviewed publications

Grossmann, I., Klotzbach, P., 2009. A Review of North Atlantic Modes of Natural Variability and Their Driving Mechanisms. Accepted for publication in Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.

Grossmann, W.D., Steininger, K.W., Grossmann, I., Magaard, L., 2009. Indicators on economic risk from global climate change. Environmental Science and Technology (in press).

Grossmann, I., 2009. Atlantic hurricane risks: preparing for the plausible. Environmental Science and Technology 43 (20) (in press).

Grossmann, I., 2008. Perspectives for Hamburg as a port-city in the context of a changing global environment. Geoforum 39: 2062-2072

Grossmann, I., 2007. Critical and strategic factors for scenario development and discontinuity tracing. Futures 39: 878-894

Grossmann, I., Woth, K., v. Storch, H., 2006. Localization of global climate change: Storm surge scenarios for Hamburg in 2030 and 2085. Die Küste 71: 169-182

Grossmann, I., 2006. Three Scenarios for the greater Hamburg region. Futures 38 (1): 31-49

Grossmann, I., 2006. Future perspectives for the Lower Elbe Region 2005-2030: Climate trends and globalization. Dissertation. GKSS Report 2006/7, 177 pp

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