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I am a Professor in Atmospheric Sciences in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University. At the moment I am also Head of the Department. My main field of research deals with global lightning activity, and the connections between lightning activity and the Earth's climate. What determines the global distribution and frequency of lightning flashes? Will lightning activity change in a warmer climate? How do we measure global lightning activity from a single location on the earth's surface? Is lightning activity related to important climate parameters such as upper tropospheric water vapor? Does lightning have a significant impact on atmospheric chemistry? What are sprites, and can we study them from Israel? Is lightning activity related to flash floods, severe weather and perhaps hurricane generation and intensity? How important is lightning in causing forest fires?
Other related
research deals
with the
El Nino climate phenomenon. Does El Nino impact the weather and
climate of the Middle
East? Is our regional
climate in the Middle East changing due to global warming? What
can computer models tell
us about the future?
And some research questions not directly related to the atmosphere: Do shooting stars (meteors) produce electromagnetic pulses as they enter the atmosphere? And do active seismic zones emit electromagnetic precursors before earthquakes? What is Space Weather? Lots of questions.......
In addition to research, I
also
teach courses related to climate change, and our atmosphere. I
teach four
undergraduate
courses, two related to the Earth's atmosphere and global Climate
Change, one on El Nino, and
the last on Electrical and Optical Phenomena in the Atmosphere. I
also teach two
graduate seminars, one on Biomass Burning, and the other
related to topics in Atmospheric Electricity.
Our research in the
NEWS!!
Nov 2009: Solar
Rotation detection using lightning data
May 2009: Hurricanes
and lightning activity
February 2009: Sprite
Symmetry
May 2007: African
Lightning and Hurricane Genesis
January 2008: Research ranked #25
in Top 100 Science Stories of 2007 by Discovery Magazine
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