MeetMichelle Jabes Corpora’03, English and theatre. Michelle is the author of nine novels, an editor for commercial fiction, and an avid student of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She came to UMBC as a Linehan Artist Scholar in 1999 to study theatre before deciding to double major in English. Michelle has found that her background in theatre has been a helpful tool in her writing. Take it away, Michelle!

Q: What’s one essential thing you’d want another Retriever to know about you?

A: I am a 2003 alumna, a double major in English and theatre. Today, I am the author of nine novels for young readers, and have been an editor of commercial fiction for 17 years for both big publishing companies in New York and a book packaging company based out of London.

My latest novel, Holly Horror: The Longest Night, is scheduled to release on August 13, 2024. It is a young adult horror story and the terrifying sequel to Holly Horror.

The first book in my newest series, a trilogy that was pitched as “Ancient Egyptian Game of Thrones for YA readers,” is slated to be published by Sourcebooks Fire in Summer 2025. Stay tuned!

​Q: What is your WHY? What brought you to UMBC?

A: Initially, I came to UMBC as a Linehan Artist Scholar studying theatre, but once I began my years on campus, I realized I wanted to supplement my studies with a major in English. The experiences I had in both academic departments went on to inform my choice of career in book publishing, and the way that I write novels. Learning about drama helped significantly with my approach to character, plot, and pacing.

Pictured right: Michelle as ‘Cleo’ AKA Fraulein Kost in a 2001 UMBC Theatre production of Cabaret.

Q: Tell us more about your career. What do you like most about writing and editing?

A: I am an author as well as a senior commissioning editor at Working Partners, Ltd. Fiction has always been my passion, so I love working creatively every day and writing books for young readers. But it’s been a long road to get where I am today!

After receiving my bachelor’s degree in English and theatre from UMBC, I went on to earn a master’s degree in Children’s Literature from Hollins University. After that, I did some weird stuff. I was a wedding singer for a while. I also worked with animals in a vet’s office and at a wildlife rehabilitation center. Eventually, I moved to New York and worked as an assistant editor at Greenwillow Books before getting my job with Working Partners. All of these serendipitous events eventually led me to the #AuthorLife.

​Before I wrote books with my name on the cover, I was a ghostwriter for a world-famous middle-grade mystery series. I wrote my first five novels in that series, and enjoyed every minute of it. It was an honor to be a part of a legacy that is cherished by so many. Looking back, all those detours were exactly what I needed. Not only do different experiences help you become a more well-rounded person and writer, they allowed me both to meet people who would become so important in my career, and teach me—through learning to be an editor—what really makes a good book. It also taught me to embrace my “chameleon” self—I’ve always loved many different genres of fiction, and felt that it was somehow a personal failing that I could never choose just one. Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve written mysteries, historical fiction, horror, and fantasy, and I see no reason to stop now.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A. I live in Frederick, Maryland, with my dear husband, my two wonderful daughters, two guinea pigs named Fireball and Olive, and a rescue mutt named Charlie. When I’m not writing and editing books, you can usually find me at Crazy 88 MMA, training in the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Competing at tournaments and being promoted to blue belt in BJJ were some of the proudest moments of my life. Some people may see videos of me rolling around on the floor and fighting my friends and think that I’m crazy. I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of this statement.

Q: What’s the one thing you’d want someone who hasn’t joined the UMBC community to know about the support you find here?

A: UMBC is a tight-knit community. Even though it’s a public state university, it has a private college feel with big university resources. It’s a place that allows people to find their way in the world, even if your journey might take you off the beaten path.

Q: What’s your favorite part of being a part of Retriever Nation?

A: I meet so many other UMBC alumni out in the world, and we always have great stories to tell about our time on campus. It’s a wonderful shared experience that always feels personal.

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

Meet Hyojin Choi, a double major in psychology and social work at UMBC at The Universities at Shady Grove. A transfer student, Hyojin is an active member of the peer advisory team and president of the Psychology Student Association—all while also serving as a social work intern at the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County, Maryland. In fact, he looks forward to working there after graduation. Take it away, Hyojin!

Q: What do you love about your internship?

A: As an intern at HOC, I have learned much about how housing works in the United States and the many challenges people face while trying to remain housed. I have had to make some tough choices. I have also had the privilege of working with the Tobytown community, which HOC works with. It is a predominantly African-American, older community with a lot of history. It has been such an honor to meet and get to know the residents and hear their stories.

Q: What’s the one thing you’d want someone who hasn’t joined the UMBC community to know about the support you find here?

A: We get a lot of support from our professors at USG. All the professors I have had have an open-door policy regarding their offices. They also make it clear that they can be contacted via email and are very responsive. Professors are always open to hearing about how we are doing, well after we finish the courses they teach. You can tell they want us to succeed as the next generation of social workers.  

Q: What’s it like at the Shady Grove campus?

A: I love that UMBC at Shady Grove is where you see the same people in almost all your classes. It allows us to get to know the other students and foster lifelong friendships. My two closest friends are alumni of the social work program at Shady Grove. And I have built so many lasting connections with other students that don’t happen at other universities. We all go through courses and the internship process together and eventually apply to graduate school together. We are together for the very high and very low stressful times. But through it all, we know that other people are going through the exact same thing, which helps. The diversity of people also creates diversity in dialogues–for example, in my social policy courses. Those two classes have had some of the most lively (but respectful) dialogues on hot-button issues.

Q: Tell us about your journey to UMBC Shady Grove and how you’ve been supported along the way. 

A: I came to UMBC because of the small class sizes and the passion of the people within the social work department. Students here want to learn; and I’ve found community in the close-relationships I have formed with my peers. As a social work student, I have met so many people that I have built lifelong friendships with. The professors have been nothing but professional, personable, passionate, driven, welcoming, and inclusive to students of all backgrounds.

The people I have met in my classes have driven me so much. They are part of the reason why I love to study to UMBC. I always feel that every class is a chance to learn something I did not know before. I believe that my time at UMBC has taught me to be an advocate for myself and for others. Currently, I am working to advocate for the UMBC-Shady Grove students to make improvements in areas where there may be some shortcomings.

Q: How else are you involved on campus?

A: I am a member of the Peer Advisory Team (PAT) since 2022 at UMBC-Shady Grove. I have loved the opportunity to meet with prospective students. It gives such a unique insight into the minds of the incoming transfer students and allows me to really connect and meet people from other majors who I would otherwise not have had the chance to meet. I am also the president of the Psychology Student Association. As the president of the PSA, I have met a lot of students. We also get to work with other student organizations on our campus, and we collaborated for a special holiday event last year in 2023.

Q: What advice would you give to future Retrievers?

A: Always take opportunities to learn and lead. Whenever there is a chance to learn something new or expand your horizons—take it. You never know where it could lead you. It may end up changing you life in ways that you could never have foreseen in a million years.

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

An “all-in” personality

Feller has always recognized her artistic side, but she wasn’t always encouraged to integrate it into her career plans. She was a good student, and her kindergarten teacher told her parents she would probably become a doctor. “I got that message my whole life,” Feller says.

It sunk in, and she started at HWS on the pre-med track. As an undergrad, she took an internship as a surgical assistant in a hospital. “There was a major clash with who I was as a person,” Feller says. “Literally, you are in a sterile environment. So while I was good at that job, it crushed me.” 

But expectations die hard, and in her junior year, she was still looking at medical school. She decided she should do research to boost her chances. “Literally, it was just for my CV,” she says. Little did she know the experience would permanently shift her trajectory.

For this design, Feller incorporated the organisms studied in the UMBC biological sciences department for its annual, informal graduate student t-shirt.

Today, Feller is focused on furthering her research, engaging her students, and raising her family—her second child arrived this October. As a faculty member, Feller is maintaining old connections and forging new ones.

“Kate is really doing a fantastic job of creating and maintaining a network across different areas of science and education, in the research that she does but also in the way that she teaches and the way she facilitates those connections across institutions,” Kenyon, her mentor from HWS, says. For example, Kenyon is now collaborating with a colleague at Union because Feller connected them. And Kenyon is using a book in her courses that features the Cronin lab’s research— including some carried out by Feller.

“What I have thoroughly enjoyed is watching Kate progress at each step along the way, and find her passion, and be able to pursue something with such rigor, and excitement and resilience,” says Kenyon.

Whether creating art, performing on stage or in the classroom, working hard in the lab, or collecting specimens underwater, Feller is embracing each stage of her life and career with a zest that is uniquely hers. As Cronin puts it, “She was always Kate. She never started or stopped being Kate.”

“The thing that I love most is just trying to figure out how the world works,” Feller says. “I like to describe myself as an explorer. I am not a Magellan or a person on a ship looking to explore new places—I’m pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Where is the edge, and how can I shed light on the unknown?”

Feller is on the exploration of a lifetime, discovering new things about how brains work, transforming the lives of students, and doing it all in full color. As her research program takes off, her family grows, and her network broadens, her greatest adventures may be ahead of her.

The most recent artworks by Hadieh Shafie, M.F.A. ’04, intermedia and digital arts, appear like optical illusions, tricks. Tightly stacked lines of colored pencil suddenly twist and warp into circles. The two-dimensional surface swirls and vibrates, like eddy lines in a river or sound waves blasting from a speaker. Tucked into these dancing lines, Shafie has written the Persian word for passionate love: eshgh.

The drawings pull together many themes from Shafie’s work and life experience, of leaving her home country of Iran in 1983 at the age of 12 and never going back. From her childhood there, she recalls how women were banned from reading certain texts.

“The importance of books and the power of language, the seed of that idea was implanted in my heart and mind then,” says Shafie, a 2014 Alumni Award recipient. “I saw things as a child there that were really traumatic. So, I felt that while my culture is imbued with all this poetry and love for beauty—things that are beautiful, and homes are decorated, and there’s this idea of paradise in the Persian carpet—there was a lack of really practicing any of it.”

Work documentation of Shafie’s Draw, Cut, Rotate series by Robert J. Fagan.

Love and the circle have shown up in her art since the beginning, since her days studying painting at the Pratt Institute in the nineties and intermedia and digital arts at UMBC in the early aughts. Her work now resides in collections of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and in exhibits from Virginia to Dubai to Australia.

She considers herself a Brooklynite, but when she found the M.F.A. program at UMBC, she was ready for a break from the city. She was drawn to the program because it was small, intimate, and she was excited about the writings on performance art by Kathy O’Dell, a faculty member in the Department of Visual Arts.

At UMBC, Shafie began a deeper exploration of the Whirling Dervishes, the religious art form of spinning meditative circle dance, and the poems of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian mystic who expounded on the idea of passionate love. Shafie started whirling at UMBC.

“I was getting better at it, only to come to realize that as an Iranian woman, the very first session when I was whirling and I got sick, and I fell on the ground and slammed into the wall—that was my work,” says Shafie, explaining that was symbolic of the role of women in Iranian society. “As a woman I’m never allowed to forget I’m a woman, my place in society, and the things that are barriers to me, so that was very significant.”

Shafie carried these themes into the “Paper Works” series, where she packs a frame with tightly rolled and stacked sheaves of colored paper that have been filled with texts. The effect is a dizzying mosaic of thousands of circles.

“I started with fragments of poems and then kept reducing it to one word, and the word and the common denominator for all of our problems was love and hate,” Shafie says. “I didn’t want to use the word hate. So I use the word for passionate love.”

In her new body of work, the optical “Cut & Rotate Series,” love continues to prevail, the word eshgh appearing like notches, like dragonflies that have landed on rivers of color and line.

“This word that’s so ordinary holds so much power,” Shafie says.

By Alex V. Cipolle

Other members of the UMBC community are also asking big questions and using their intuition to follow the question for as long as it takes. Read about these creative thinkers willing to get lost on a tangent, to joyfully put themselves in positions of not knowing, and looking for new ways of translating the world around them in Open to Interpretation.

When UMBC’s volleyball team headed to the University of Southern California (USC) for a tournament, Athletics reached out and invited West Coast Retrievers to an LA happy hour before the game. Eager to reconnect with their alma mater and meet other alumni in the area, folks gathered together and new friendships were formed. 

Despite the decades between their UMBC experiences, Matt Sheriff ’00, political science, and Nathenael Dereb ’21, computer science, bonded over a quintessential California connection—surfing. Specifically, Dereb, a recent relocator, wanted to learn how and Sheriff, who’s been on the West Coast for years, had the skills to teach. Since then, the pair has been meeting before work in the mornings catching the waves. They carved out some time to share the experience with UMBC Magazine. 

UMBC Magazine: We know how you two met—can you tell us how you hit it off?

Sheriff: I attended graduate business school at USC, so when I read about a tournament volleyball game at USC that the UMBC team was invited to attend, I was simply amazed that my undergrad school was coming to USC. At the alumni pre-party, I met Nate Dereb, who, like me, also relocated from Maryland to LA. He was interested in learning to surf, so I’ve been introducing him to the sport when our schedules align. The beauty of living in Los Angeles is we can surf in the morning and be at work by 9 a.m., even earlier if necessary!

UMBC Magazine: What are your best surf tips?

Sheriff: Take it slow in terms of expectations and remind yourself that the best surfer is the one having the most fun.

UMBC Magazine: How was the change from Maryland to California?

Dereb: Relocating across the country to a city I’ve never been before was an overwhelming experience, but I was fortunate to have my family around me during my relocation. One of the shocking things was finding myself outside only in shorts and a shirt in February! I’m still amazed by that.

UMBC Magazine: What are you up to now?

Sheriff: I’m a senior advisor at Southern California Edison where I lead regulatory economics projects and represent the company before the California Public Utilities Commission as an expert witness. Most of my work is finance-related but the communication and analytical skills I learned at UMBC are immensely helpful.

Dereb: I am working as a software engineer at Adobe within the analytics organization. On the side, I’m still maintaining and adding data for the platform I built during my senior year that assists students and faculty in retrieving data regarding course grades, course evaluations, and professors at UMBC.

UMBC Magazine: What was your experience at UMBC like? 

Dereb: My involvement in the Center for Women in Technology organization, as a Cyber Scholar, is an experience I will always cherish. I was also fortunate to win several awards and scholarships, get multiple internship opportunities, become a teaching fellow for Computer Science 202, and do innovative research as part of the Interactive Robotics and Language lab on campus. I am a proud Retriever!

Sheriff: More than anything I feel like I grew into a young adult who was ready for the world.

At UMBC, we welcome Retrievers of all stripes… and feathers. Spotted on campus recently enjoying student life is an 87-year-old yellow crowned amazon parrot named Chicken. Yes, you read that right, Chicken. 

Elle Kreiner ’20, anthropology, a current master’s student in applied sociology, rescued the bird in 2017 after his long-term caretaker passed away and the family wasn’t able to keep him. Despite coming to campus to spread his wings (metaphorically—Chicken doesn’t enjoy flying), Kreiner doesn’t believe their parrot would make a great student, although he does speak three languages. 

Prior to his time with Kreiner, Chicken lived in pre–World War II Germany and then spent most of his years in Florida. As a result, he is prone to colorful language in German, Spanish, and English, says Kreiner, but his favorite word? “Definitely ‘cracker.’” 

“If I had to personify him, he’d be a really old crotchety professor, who should have retired 20 years ago but is still here because everyone likes him,” says Kreiner. Like many octogenarians, Chicken doesn’t enjoy the cold, so if you see him on campus on a sunny day, be sure to say Guten Tag!

After four seasons at UMBC, Courtney Coppersmith’s name has become synonymous with success on and off the softball field. The America East Conference agrees. Yesterday, Coppersmith ‘22, biochemistry and molecular biology, was named America East Woman of the Year. 

The America East introduced the Woman of the Year award in 2006 and the Man of the Year followed in 2015. Coppersmith is the first Retriever in university history to achieve this honor and only the second softball player ever represented. 

Top athlete

This is one of many UMBC records set by the pitcher from York, PA, and her team. With titles in 2019, 2021, and 2022, UMBC was the first team to win three consecutive America East conference championships since UAlbany in 2006-2008. (No championship was held in 2020, due to COVID-19.) In 2022, Coppersmith was named America East Pitcher of the Year for the third consecutive year. She’s the second player in conference history to nab the award three times.

“Courtney has been an exceptional athlete and a leader on the field, a high-level student in the classroom, and has a servant’s heart for people around her and in the community,” says head coach Chris Kuhlmeyer. “We are honored that she has received the Woman of the Year award and look forward to seeing her continue to excel in her final year at UMBC.”

Exceptional academic and advocate

As Kuhlmeyer mentioned, Coppersmith will continue her academic career at UMBC for her final year of athletic eligibility. She will pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry, with a focus in organic chemistry. Katherine Seley-Radtke, professor of chemistry and biochemistry and president of the International Society for Antiviral Research, will serve as Coppersmith’s mentor. 

In addition to her athletic and academic strengths, Coppersmith has worked to increase the visibility of athletes’ mental health needs. After struggling with depression during an intense first year at UMBC, she wrote an essay about her experiences that won a national contest and earned coverage from Major League Baseball and ESPN. Her story resonated with fellow athletes, whom she has supported through advocacy and encouragement. She has also helped them build networks of support and a sense of community connection, often through service.

The conference describes Woman of the Year honorees as student-athletes who have “best distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate career in the areas of academic achievement, athletic excellence, service and leadership.” Coppersmith will now serve as the America East’s nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year, which will be announced this fall.

The Simons Foundation and its sister organization, Simons Foundation International, have pledged $2.5 million over five years to support the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Continued partnership between UMBC and Simons will also generate opportunities for program alumni and support Meyerhoff replication efforts at other institutions.

For almost 30 years, the Simons Foundation has worked to support advances in mathematics and basic science by funding external scientists and, more recently, through research at its own Flatiron Institute in New York City. Simons has also done outreach work through the Math for America program, which seeks to enhance the math and science literacy of children in New York City public schools. The gift to UMBC, however, represents a new emphasis on supporting the development of a diverse pipeline of STEM professionals.

Partnering to diversify STEM

“I have long admired the UMBC Meyerhoff program for its significant impact on training outstanding students from diverse backgrounds. It is an important model for other universities, and its alumni are at the forefront of scientific research,” says David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International. “I am proud that the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International can partner with UMBC through support of this program.”

Craig Wesley, manager of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Simons Foundation, has also been following President Freeman Hrabowski’s work for years. When Wesley started in his role a little over a year ago, he undertook a study to see what programs existed that were already successfully helping diversify the STEM pipeline. The Meyerhoff Scholars program jumped out as a leader in that space.

“The vision became, how could we replicate that model here in the New York area?” Wesley says. “We needed to find the right institutional partner to launch this work.” As it turned out, UMBC was the perfect fit.

Immediate impact

The new partnership will also create summer research opportunities for Meyerhoff Scholars at the Flatiron Institute. Naiyah Lewis ’23, M31, computer science,is already in New York for a summer internship with Natalie Sauerwald, a Flatiron Research Fellow with a focus on computational techniques in genomics.

This new grant will support scholarships for Meyerhoff Scholars and serve as a dedicated funding source for Summer Bridge, a cornerstone of the Meyerhoff experience undertaken by Scholars before their first year at UMBC. During Summer Bridge, Scholars bond as a community and internalize what it means to be a Meyerhoff Scholar. This includes the values of collaboration, leadership, service, professionalism, and academic excellence—alongside hard work and grit.

Meyerhoff alumni will also benefit. They will be invited to apply for Transition to Independence Awards through the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain and the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain. These large awards target Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. scientists from underrepresented groups who are currently in training positions and seeking tenure-track roles. Postdoctoral positions may also be available for Meyerhoff Scholar alumni at the Flatiron Institute.

“UMBC and Meyerhoff are excited to partner with the Simons Foundation in advancing our efforts to promote inclusive excellence and diversify the nation’s STEM workforce,” says Keith Harmon, director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program.

Ripple effect—amplified

In addition to helping individual students and alumni, the growing partnership between UMBC and Simons will also advance a larger, shared goal of both institutions: launching more programs modeled on the Meyerhoff Scholars. UMBC staff and faculty involved with Meyerhoff will work with SUNY Stony Brook to create a Meyerhoff-like program within the public university system in New York.

“We are committed to helping increase the diversity of the STEM workforce,” Spergel says. “We see our collaboration with UMBC as key to helping us reach that goal through partnerships, in part by helping to adapt the Meyerhoff model at Stony Brook.”

As the partnership between UMBC and the Simons Foundation develops, the institutions hope their collaborative work will amplify the ripple effect already occurring across the country as Meyerhoff alumni advance in their careers. As more students get to experience the support offered by Meyerhoff and programs like it, they, too, will join the ranks of these alumni and make their own impact.

Priscila de Almeida Feitosa

Degree: B.S., Computer Science
Hometown: São Paulo, Brazil
Plans: Software engineer for Amazon

“On campus, I never felt different. I never felt nervous when I needed to do a presentation because I didn’t think anyone would care about my accent or where I’m from, because at UMBC everyone is from somewhere.”

As a Cyber Scholar and Center for Women in Technology Scholar, Priscila de Almeida Feitosa ’22, computer science, found like-minded classmates at UMBC—students who wanted to challenge the status quo of representation in technology fields. 

Alemeida with Cindy Greenwood, advisor and assistant director of Cyber Scholars Program. Image courtesy of Almeida.

Almeida, whose first degree is in business, came from Brazil with the goal of redefining her career path. “In the U.S., I thought, I’ll try for the first time in my life to do something that I want to do. I’ve always wanted to change the world, and it seems like the most changes in the world happen in technology.” Almeida is excited to use her software engineering position at Amazon as a jumping off point for volunteering with young women interested in STEM, exposing them to what is possible. 

“I want to be a model for middle school girls,” says Almeida. “I want that age group to know what’s possible in this field and for them to see someone like themselves designing software. When I started to code and saw my products running, then it really clicked for me—I can see myself building something that is actually going to be meaningful for the world.”

A new analysis based on 16 years of observational data confirms that humans are heating the planet—a fact that had previously been inferred from climate models but not yet shown through direct evidence. Ryan Kramer, assistant research scientist at UMBC’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, led the research, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Kramer and colleagues analyzed atmospheric data collected continuously by NASA’s CERES mission from 2003 to 2018. They were able to show that a portion of the energy being trapped inside Earth’s atmosphere and causing warming is directly attributable to human activities.  

The new analysis, and the novel technique Kramer employed to complete it, will create opportunities to compare and improve climate models and to track climate change mitigation efforts in nearly real time.

Many factors, one main culprit: Humans

CERES tracks changes in radiation (energy) entering and exiting Earth’s atmosphere, but doesn’t parse out exactly what’s causing the changes. Kramer did that with a technique called “radiative kernels.” Atmospheric scientists often apply these “kernels” to climate models, he says, but they’ve used them with observational data very rarely, and never before in this context.

A kernel can tell you how much of the total radiation change is due to a particular factor, such as the temperature, clouds, brightness of the Earth’s surface (ice versus forest, for example), or the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Kramer subtracted out all the radiation changes even possibly attributable to natural changes.

“What’s left over is the radiative forcing,” he says. “And that radiative forcing is specifically caused by changes in greenhouse gases or changes in aerosols—so it’s the changes that we can specifically tie to human activity.”

“We knew the radiative forcing had to be in the CERES observations somewhere, but this was the first time we’ve really been able to pull it out, globally, and over time,” Kramer says. Many other factors have measurable effects on the overall radiation budget. Significantly, though, over the 16-year study period, Kramer says, “As far as we can see, the long-term trend in the CERES record seems to be almost entirely accounted for by the radiative forcing.”

Ryan Kramer (JCET). Courtesy Ryan Kramer.

Improving climate models

All climate models incorporate radiative forcing, as well as “radiative feedbacks,” or secondary effects caused by radiative forcing. And all climate models also have uncertainties. 

“We tend to focus on the uncertainty in the feedbacks,” but there’s also uncertainty in how the different models simulate radiative forcing, Kramer says, “which is underappreciated.” 

“We can use the observations to evaluate the models,” Kramer adds. The models that most closely matched the CERES observations may be more likely to accurately forecast future climate change.  

Beyond determining which models were most accurate during the study period, “We can start digging into the models and see why some of the models don’t agree with the observations,” he adds. Understanding precisely what in the models causes them to disagree with real-life observations could enable improvements. 

“It’s never that easy, because observations also have their uncertainties,” Kramer says, “but I think it’s a good first step toward really checking the radiative forcing in these models and understanding why they differ.”

What’s helping and what’s not

Kramer describes the overall result—that humans are affecting the climate—as “the least surprising result in climate science.” But the fact that scientists could even detect the human-caused radiative forcing is something to be proud of, he explains.

The trend in radiative forcing over time “is an important change, but it’s often hidden behind the large fluctuations that we see on a year-over-year basis caused by El Niño or other natural processes,” he says. “The fact that our instruments can even measure it is an accomplishment.”

Perhaps even more impressive, new atmospheric data from CERES becomes available in nearly real time. Combine that with the radiative kernel technique, and you have a recipe for tracking Earth’s energy budget in a way that could immediately inform global emission reduction goals.

“I think radiative forcing could be used to track how things are going—how our actions are making climate change worse, or, eventually, how our mitigation efforts are counteracting the energy imbalances we’re causing,” Kramer says. “Radiative forcing will be another tool in the toolbox for monitoring our climate and having a productive discussion about what’s helping and what’s not.”

Banner image: A rendering of the NOAA-20 satellite, which is currently carrying instruments for the CERES mission. Image courtesy of NASA.