Charles's research program has been highlighted at the UT Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Charles is interested in the interpretation of modern and paleoclimate observational data in terms of the physics of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and their coupling. His primary research tools are complex computer models of the climate system and various simplified models that are sometimes more useful for isolating processes of interest. 

In collaboration with colleagues Mrinal Sen and Paul Stoffa at the Institute for Geophysics and Gabriel Huerta at the University of New Mexico, Charles is developing new methods that use modern and paleoclimate data to systematically and efficiently identify and quantify sources of climate model uncertainty. Charles is also interested in answering how glacial cycles occur and the processes that caused or amplified the episodes of extreme climate variability during the last glacial cycle (~120 to 10 thousand years ago). Charles has examined how the collapse of part of the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered Canada during the last glacial cycle, could facilitate episodes of climate variability on millennial time scales through its control over the atmosphere's circulation. He has worked closely with researchers at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory to model the climate system's response to continuous changes in Earth's orbital geometry over the last 165 thousand years.

For a description of the Institute for Geophysics Climate Program see UTIG Climate Projects.

For a list of other opportunities see this link.

For more information on Jackson's interests:

• Abrupt Climate Change

• Uncertainties in Model Predictions of Future Climate

• Bayesian Stochastic Inversion

The climate program at UTIG is supported, in part, by the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Current Research Projects
Collaborative Research: Collaborative Research: An Inverse Model Study of Abrupt Climate Change

Collaborative Research: Stochastic Represetation of Parameter Uncertainties Within Model Predictions of Future Climate

Uncertainty in the Climate Modeling Process and Its Implications for Predictions of Global Warming and Water Resources

Student Involvement

Recent Publications

Jackson, C. S., O. Marchal, Y. Liu, and W. Thompson, Fresh water forcing hypothesis of abrupt climate change: A test of consistency with sea level reconstructions (Submitted to Paleoceanography)

Villagran, A., G. Huerta, C. S. Jackson, M. K. Sen, Parameter Uncertainty Estimation in Climate Models. (Submitted to Bayesian Analysis)

Jackson, C. S., M. K. Sen, G. Huerta, Y. Deng, and K. P. Bowman, Error Reduction and Convergence in Climate Prediction. (in press to Journal of Climate) [pdf]

Gulden, L.E., E. Rosero, Z.-L. Yang, M. Rodell, C.S. Jackson, G.-Y. Niu, P. J.-F. Yeh, and J. Famiglietti, (2007), Improving land-surface model hydrology: Is an explicit aquifer model better than a deeper soil profile? Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L09402, doi:10.1029/2007GL029804. [pdf]

Deng, Y., K. P. Bowman, and C. Jackson (2007), Differences in rain rate intensities between TRMM observations and community atmosphere model simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L01808, doi:10.1029/2006GL027246. [pdf]

Jackson, C. S., M. K. Sen, P. L. Stoffa, and G. Huerta. "Data Directed Importance Sampling for Climate Model Parameter Uncertainty Estimation". Chapter in "Advanced Computational Infrastructures for Parallel and Distributed Adaptive Applications", John Wiley and Sons, in press. [pdf]

Jackson, C.S. Quaternary Environments (2006), In: S. A. Elias (ed) Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (4 volumes, 3376 pp). Elsevier, Amsterdam. [pdf]

Jackson, C., Y. Liu, and O. Marchal (2006) Can Models of Abrupt Climate Change be tested from Sea Level Reconstructions? PAGES NEWS, 14(2). [pdf]

Hall, A., A. Clement, D. Thompson, A. Broccoli, C. Jackson (2005) Atmospheric dynamics govern northern hemisphere wintertime climate variations forced by changes in earth’s orbit, Journal of Climate 18: 1315-1325 [pdf]

Mu, Q., C. S. Jackson, P. L. Stoffa (2004) A multivariate empirical-orthogonal-function-based measure of climate model performance,  J. Geophys. Res., 109, D15101, doi:10.1029/2004JD004584. [pdf]

Jackson, C., M. Sen, and P. Stoffa (2004) An Efficient Stochastic Bayesian Approach to Optimal Parameter and Uncertainty Estimation for Climate Model Predictions, Journal of Climate, 17(14), 2828-2841. [pdf]

Xia, Y., M. K. Sen, C. Jackson, and P. L. Stoffa (2004) Multi-dataset study of optimal parameter and uncertainty estimation of a land surface model with Bayesian Stochastic Inversion and multicriteria method, Journal of Applied Meteorology, 43 (10): 1477-1497.

Xia, Y., Z. L. Yang, C. Jackson, P. L. Stoffa, and M. K. Sen (2004) Impacts of data length on optimal parameter and uncertainty estimation of a land surface model, Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D07101,doi:10.1029/2003JD004419. [pdf]

Xia, Y., P. L. Stoffa, C. Jackson, and M. Sen (2004) Effect of forcing data errors on calibration and uncertainty estimates of CHASM model: a multi-dataset study. Observations, Theory, and Modeling of Atmospheric and Oceanic Variability, World Scientific Series on Meterology of East Asia, Vol. 4, World Scientific Publishing Corporation, Singapore.

Jackson, C., Y. Xia, M. Sen, and P. Stoffa (2003) Optimal parameter and uncertainty estimation of a land surface model: A case example using data from Cabauw, Netherlands, Journal of Geophysical Research, 108 (D18), 4583 10.1029/2002JD002991. [pdf]

Jackson, C., and A. J. Broccoli (2003) Orbital Forcing of Arctic Climate: Mechanisms of climate response and implications for continental glaciation, Climate Dynamics, 21, 539-557, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-003-0351-3. [pdf

Jackson, C., and A.J. Broccoli (2000) The influence of orbital configuration on Arctic glaciation, Proceedings of the third Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) Workshop, WCRP-111, 177-178.

Jackson, C. (2000) Sensitivity of stationary wave amplitude to regional changes in Laurentide ice sheet topography in single-layer models of the atmosphere, J. Geophys. Res., 105 (D19), 24443-24454. [pdf]

Jackson, C. (1999) Sensitivity of stationary wave amplitude to regional changes in Laurentide ice sheet topography, Mechanisms of Global Climate Change at Millennial Time Scales, AGU Geophysical Monograph Vol. 112, Eds. P. Clark, R. Webb and L. Keigwin, 329-337.

Jackson, C. (1997) Sensitivity of a two-layer model atmosphere to changes in ice-sheet topography, Annals of Glaciology, 25, 246-249.

Roelofs, L.D, and C. Jackson (1993) Critical and finite-size behavior of the Heisenberg model with face-centered-cubic anisotropy. Phys. Rev. B 47, 197-201. [pdf]

Charles's UTIG Contributions (Publications)