Rolf Schimmer

Research interests

My research revolves around the intrinsic link between the Hadley and Walker circulations in the Pacific. The tropical Pacific hosts the primary region of deep convection and forms the shared ascending branch of the Walker and Hadley circulations, which regulate the distribution of energy, angular momentum, and moisture across the climate system. Despite their importance and spatial entanglement, the dynamical coupling between these two circulations remains poorly understood. By utilizing idealized models, I work on unraveling the intrinsic link between both large-scale circulations.

One point of interest intertwined with these dynamics is to investigate the roles of the Western Pacific warm pool and the Eastern Pacific cold tongue region in shaping the overall tropical convective pattern of the Pacific. The fixed-SST perspective commonly refers to the warm pool regions as dominant player in dictating the convective organization. Coupled runs though yield results that offer an alternative view: one in which the cold tongue region is an active player in organizing deep convection all along the equatorial Pacific.