Sudhansu Rath

I spent my undergraduate years studying Agricultural Engineering at Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology, India. Where I got inspired to use satellite remote sensing and Geographical information systems and applied them to the agriculture and urban sector. Subsequently, I earned a master’s in Remote sensing and GIS in 2013 after conducting my thesis on modeling land suitability analysis for crops affected by anthropogenic land use (LU) and climate change. I have a brief teaching experience as an Assistant Professor at Galgotias University, India, where I taught surveying, GIS, remote sensing fundamentals, and applications. Later, I joined to pursue my PhD to understand more about anthropogenic climate change and earn a PhD in earth and atmospheric sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, in 2021.

My doctoral thesis was focused on the quantification and dynamics of urban growth using satellite and GIS tools for cities. I tried to examine the impact of LU change on regional weather and climate by incorporating the long-term changes into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. I used a bulk urban parameterization approach using Noah land surface schemes to represent the urban LU changes inside WRF. Key results from the dissertation work show an improvement in the simulation of rainfall and runoff distribution and amount, enhanced understanding of urban flood, heat island, and heatwave interaction over different types of cities. 

Here in Illinois, my ongoing research includes analyzing novel datasets prepared from the dynamic downscaling of CMIP6 models over North America. The unique 4km simulation provides an outlook for the future climate over the region using the WRF model.

Additionally, I am looking at how the extreme precipitation over a region will change in future emission scenarios following the CMIP6 climate model simulations. A Pseudo Global Warming procedure will be employed to look at how specific extreme precipitation events will turnout in future climates.