overview

• Dr. Thomas Rickenbach is an internationally recognized expert in precipitation variability and climate. Dr. Rickenbach's research investigates how weather systems, from thunderstorms to hurricanes, control and respond to changes in regional climate. He is also interested in the changing hydrological impacts of seasonal and year-to-year variability in rain system structure. As a radar meteorologist, Dr. Rickenbach has traveled across the globe in NASA-sponsored field programs to study the local and global impacts of weather systems. His work has been applied to reducing the uncertainties in computer model simulations of future climate.
  Dr. Rickenbach has over twenty years of experience in environmental research, consulting, and expert testimony. His research has been published in leading journals including Journal of Climate, Journal of Atmospheric Science, Journal of Geophysical Research, International Journal of Climatology, Monthly Weather Review, and the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. He worked as an environmental consultant in southern California, in the area of air quality regulatory compliance. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Rickenbach spent eight years as a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. Rickenbach served as an associate editor for the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. Through the American Meteorological Society he has represented climate science at the U.S. Congress engaging with House and Senate members and staff on climate issues that affect policy. He appears frequently on television, radio, and in print media discussing issues from local weather phenomena to the regional impacts of climate change.
  Dr. Rickenbach received his B.S. degree in engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in atmospheric science at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Dr. Rickenbach was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, before joining the Joint Center for Earth System Technology at NASA GSFC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.