Room 6030, Engineering
Laramie, WY
Phone: (405) 471-1117
Email: srahimi@uwyo.edu
Ph.D., Atmospheric Science, University of Wyoming (2019)
M.Sc., Meteorology, University of Oklahoma (2014)
B.Sc., Meteorology, University of Oklahoma (2012)
Growing up in Oklahoma, I became captivated about the physics of severe weather. During my M.Sc., I worked to improve the accuracy of trajectories around a simulated ultra-high-resolution tornadic supercell. As I moved into my Ph.D., I became more fascinated with climate processes, its variability, and anthropogenic forcings; I studied this topic by using many different numerical modeling frameworks (regional climate models, global climate models, and variable-resolution global climate models). This led me to the work I have been engaged with over the past 4 years, creating the most comprehensive set of high-resolution physics based climate projections across the western U.S. through the year 2100.
High-resolution climate modeling
Regional climate change and impacts on weather extremes
Creating fit-for-purpose physics based high-resolution climate data, addressing philosophical and quality questions about its development
Severe weather and convective-scale meteorology
Mesoscale and synoptic-scale dynamical meteorology
Research-wise, I strive to build diverse relationships with professors, scientists, students, and stakeholders that can power the interdisciplinary science necessary to facilitate climate action and foster education. I want to make the idea of climate change more real to society at large in order to increase resiliency. From the perspective of teaching, I strive to (i) not shield students away from difficult or controversial topics, (ii) support them in their quest for knowledge, and (iii) inspire them to seek engagement with class and broader community.
UCLA Center for Climate Science
Created the Western U.S. Dynamically Downscaled Dataset as we continue to redefine ‘best practices’ in creating high-resolution climate change projections.
Through this collaboration, I served as the lead atmospheric modeler for California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment.
Industry
Worked to provide our partners high-resolution climate projections across the entire U.S. at very high spatial resolution.
Rahimi, S., Huang, L., Hall, A., Hall, Goldenson, N., A., Norris, J., Risser, M., Lebo, Z., Norris, J., Feldman, D., Dennis, E., and Thackeray, C.: Understanding the Cascade: Revoving GCM biases before dynamical downscaling improves dynamically downscaled climate projections, Geophys. Res. Lett. In revisions.
Risser, M., Rahimi, S., Goldenson, G., Lebo, Z. J., Hall, A., and Feldman, D.: Is bias correction in dynamical downscaling defensible? Geophys. Res. Lett. In press.
Rahimi, S., Huang, L., Norris, J., Hall, A., Goldenson, N., Krantz, W., Bass, B., Thackeray, C., Lin, H., Chen, D., Dennis, E., Collins, E., Lebo., J. Z., Slinskey, E., Graves, S., Biyani, S., and Wand B.: An Overview of the Western United States Dynamically Downscaled Dataset (WUS-D3), Geosci. Mod. Dev. In review at https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2023-162/
Rhoades, Alan M., Zarzycki, C. M., Inda-Diaz, A. H., Ombadi, M., Pasquier, U., Srivastava, A., Hatchett, B. J., Dennis, E., Heggli, A., McCrary, R., McGinnis, S., Rahimi-Esfarjani, S., Slinskey, E., Ullrich, P. A., Wehner, M., and Jones, A. D.: Recreating the California New Year’s Flood Event of 1997 in a Regionally Refined Earth System Model.” Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 15, no. 10. e2023MS003793. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS003793
Goldenson, N., Leung, L. R., Mearns, L. O., Pierce, D. W., Reed, K. A., Simpson, I. R., Ullrich, P., Krantz, W., Hall, A., Jones, A., and Rahimi, S.: Use-Inspired, Process-Oriented GCM Selection: Prioritizing Models for Regional Dynamical Downscaling, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 1, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0100.1
Bass, B., Goldenson, N., Rahimi, S., and Hall, A.: Aridification of Colorado River Basin’s Snowpack Regions Has Driven Water Losses Despite Ameliorating Effects of Vegetation, Water Resources Research, 59, e2022WR033454, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033454
Bass, B., Rahimi, S., Goldenson, N., Hall, A., Norris, J., and Lebow, Z. J.: Achieving Realistic Runoff in the Western United States with a Land Surface Model Forced by Dynamically Downscaled Meteorology, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 24, 269–283, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-22-0047.1
Fernández-Alvarez, J. C., Pérez-Alarcón, A., Eiras-Barca, J., Ramos, A. M., Rahimi-Esfarjani, S., Nieto, R., and Gimeno, L.: Changes in Moisture Sources of Atmospheric Rivers Landfalling the Iberian Peninsula With WRF-FLEXPART, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 128, e2022JD037612, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD037612
Fernández-Alvarez, J. C., Costoya, X., Pérez-Alarcón, A., Rahimi, S., Nieto, R., and Gimeno, L.: Dynamic downscaling of wind speed over the North Atlantic Ocean using CMIP6 projections: Implications for offshore wind power density, Energy Reports, 9, 873–885, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2022.12.036
Improving quality of high-resolution climate projections and robust uncertainty quantification
AI-Climate downscaling, bias correction in downscaling
Integrating climate change data with hydrology and ecosystem modeling
Increasing climate literacy in K-12 education to increase community resilience
With collaborators at UW and UCLA, I am working to build a national climate change database that can be used to inform infrastructure design, promote climate justice, and inform policy decisions.
Graduate Atmospheric Dynamics
Specialized workshops or seminars conducted
Innovative teaching methods or approaches
American Geophysical Union
American Meteorlogical Society
Technical Editor, Geoscientific Model Development, Flagship Pilot Study Lead, NA-CORDEX
