Hosts: Minki Hong and Sergey Malyshev

The objective of this project is to understand the role of two-way soil- groundwater-stream/river processes in the development of extreme hydrologic events (flood, drought, and/or heatwave). The researcher will utilize GFDL’s state-of-the-art hydrologic land model, recently developed for the representation of the Soil-Hillslope Aquifer-River Continuum (i.e., LM4-SHARC) within the ESM framework and hydrologic observations. By selecting one of the major basins (HUC 2 scale) in the CONUS, the researcher is expected to perform basin-scale hydrologic modeling for current and future projections of terrestrial water/energy cycle while accounting for distinct anthropogenic warming scenarios. The researcher will also explore the sensitivity of hydrologic variables (e.g., streamflow, soil moisture/temperature) to aquifer properties and how they are estimated/varied by scale and atmospheric forcing. The final details will be shaped with input from both the researcher and the mentor with some flexibility in terms of data/area selection, optimization methods, and/or data analysis/visualization.