Spencer A. Hill Assistant Professor Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, City College of New York

Overview

Welcome! I am a climate scientist interested in tropical overturning circulations (monsoons, Hadley cells, and the Intertropical Convergence Zone a.k.a. the ITCZ). Specifically:

Why they exist when and where they do
How they ebb and flow over the course of each year
How well we can predict their variations from year to year
How those year-to-year variations affect agricultural and economic outcomes
How they may have changed in Earth's history
How they may change in Earth's future
How they behave in other planetary atmospheres.

I'm also interested in how weather and climate impact real-world outcomes for New York City. I explore all this with the other talented members of my New York Climate Investigations: Theory To Impacts (New York CITTI) research group. Please see the Publications page to learn more about our past work, the Group page to learn more about who we are, and the Opportunities page to learn more about joining us.

I work in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York as an Assistant Professor.

I also hold an adjunct position at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, where I collaborate with Michela Biasutti on a project investigating the role of energy transports by tropical transient disturbances in setting the location of the ITCZ.

I am also interested in the connections between weather and climate science on the one hand with music, literature, poetry, and other forms of human expression on the other hand. I write about this at my blog, Couldn't Stand the Weather, and occasionally tweet about it from my account @spencerahill using the hashtag #CliSciHiFi.

I also co-founded the "DIYnamics" project that seeks to improve the teaching of meteorology, climate science, and other planetary-scale sciences at the K-12 through graduate school levels by developing inexpensive, easy-to-use kits for performing physical demonstrations of core scientific concepts. Please the DIYnamics website and YouTube channel for more.

Finally, I am also interested in developing software tools for scientists in the Python programming language. Please see my Resources page for more.

Please contact me (information below) with any questions about my research or anything else you find on this site. Thanks!

Contact