R. Saravanan

Professor R. Saravanan serves as Department Head in Texas A&M University's College of Geosciences. His research focuses on climate dynamics, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and climate modeling with emphasis on tropical cyclones, midlatitude storms, and low-frequency variability. He investigates how phenomena like El Niño and mesoscale ocean eddies influence weather patterns.

Education:

• PhD (Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences), Princeton University, 1990
• MSc (Physics), Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 1986
• Postdoctoral Research, University of Cambridge (Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics), 1990-1993

Research Interests: Climate predictability across seasonal to millennial timescales, coupled ocean-atmosphere systems, and large-scale climate dynamics. Current projects explore the impact of ocean mesoscale eddies on midlatitude storms, statistical/machine learning approaches for rainfall analysis, and Atlantic tropical cyclone variability linked to ENSO and AMM modes.

Key Contributions: Over 50 peer-reviewed publications including seminal works on ocean-weather linkages (e.g., Kuroshio eddies influencing Pacific weather patterns) and tropical cyclone modulation by climate modes. Active in climate model development through collaborations with NOAA and international initiatives.

Awards:

• College of Geosciences Distinguished Research Award (2015)
• PIRATA Science Steering Committee member since 2010

Grants & Leadership: Principal investigator on NSF-funded projects exploring high-resolution climate modeling and coupled system interactions. Served as Journal of Climate editor (2007-2010) and NRC climate prediction committee member (2009).