This Fall we welcome our newest faculty member, Dr. Craig Clements.
Dr. Clements, a Bay Area native, is a recent graduate of the University of Houston. His specialties include fire weather and mountain meteorology . As part of his PhD work, he led the Fireflux field study, as featured on the cover of the September issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. In the future, Dr. Clements plans to offer new courses on both Mountain Meteorology and on Fire Weather . He also plans to re-configure our instruments class, and has already begun purchasing equipment to allow students the opportunity to take part in field studies.
In his own words, Craig answers the question: What is fire weather?
"Fire weather has traditionally focused on the conditions that could potentially lead to increased fire danger or fire behavior. Wildland fire behavior depends on fuels, topography, and meteorology. These three components change at varying time and spatial scales, and these changes can occur rapidly during a fire. The interaction of each component with the fire and the atmosphere makes forecasting fire behavior very challenging. My research is focused on the micro and meso-scales of fire meteorology, and is aimed at better understanding the dynamics of fire-atmosphere interactions. This includes the study of turbulence, fire-induced winds at the fire front, the thermodynamic structure of fire plumes, and the influence of mountain wind systems on fire behavior in mountainous terrain. I study these phenomena with the use of novel measurement platforms placed directly within the fire perimeter."
|
