I am Tirthankar Chakraborty (commonly known as TC), a staff scientist in the Earth System Modeling Group under the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I am currently working on developing and improving urban representation in land models using various observational products, including satellite-derived estimates, and examining extreme events over coastal cities.

My broad research interest is in biosphere-atmosphere interactions and I have worked on this topic at multiple scales using various methods. I completed my PhD from the Yale School of the Environment in 2021 with a focus on Earth & Environmental Science. For my dissertation, I worked with Prof. Xuhui Lee on developing a surface energy budget perspective to aerosol-climate interactions by combining theory and global climate modeling. A major focus was on the importance of the diffuse radiation fertilization effect for terrestrial processes and uncertainties in diffuse radiation in current-generation modeling and observational systems, some of which I tried to bias-correct using machine learning algorithms. Previously, my master's thesis was on urban climate, particularly the urban heat island effect, which I have continued working on over the years using satellite measurements, crowdsourced weather station data, and modeling frameworks.

I think cities will be the nexus of climate adaptation in the future and I am very interested in optimal strategies for minimizing heat stress and its disparities in cities. While I have done field and lab work in the past, most of my current research involves sitting in front of the computer and coding.

Over the past several years, I have been using the Google Earth Engine platform for large-scale geospatial analysis and algorithm development, and occasionally offer a workshop on its Javascript API. I have used this platform to develop web applications to visualize and disseminate global to regional-scale geospatial datasets. I have also written community tutorials on using the platform (Beginner's Cookbook, Customizing Base Map Styles). I am currently a Google Developer Expert for Earth Engine.

If you want to collaborate or want more information about my work, check out my projects and publications or reach out to me through: