Colin Zarzycki

Colin Zarzycki is an Associate Professor in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University, affiliated with the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. His research focuses on simulating extreme atmospheric phenomena, bridging weather and climate scales through high-resolution modeling techniques. Key areas include tropical cyclone dynamics, regional climate prediction, dynamical core development, and software engineering for petascale computing. He has contributed to advancing climate models like the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and HighResMIP2 framework, with a focus on improving detection of weather extremes in big climate data.

Recent work emphasizes tropical cyclone characteristics, atmospheric river impacts, and rain-on-snow flood event analysis. His research integrates machine learning (e.g., LSTM networks) and feature tracking methods to enhance predictive accuracy. Collaborations span institutions globally, addressing challenges in climate model validation and parameterization schemes for turbulence and surface fluxes.

Zarzycki’s work has been featured in prominent journals like Geoscientific Model Development and Journal of Climate. He actively engages in public discourse on climate change impacts, including media contributions on hurricane activity and regional snowpack changes. His interdisciplinary approach combines computational innovation with observational data integration, positioning him at the forefront of climate modeling advancements.