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Alan V. Di Vittorio

Research Scientist

Building 084, Room 0118A

M/S 74R316C

avdivittorio@lbl.gov

Curriculum Vitae

  • Education
  • Experience
  • Software Development
  • Grants, Awards, and Honors
  • Service and Leadership Activities
  • Review Activities
  • Other Web Pages

Biography

I have developed an interdisciplinary research perspective by studying a wide range of interrelated topics and coalescing them to better understand the complexity of the whole earth system. Growing up in rural, forested California influenced my decision to apply my B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to regional environmental monitoring. This led to an M.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering and Sciences, with emphases in remote sensing and atmospheric and oceanic physics, for which I developed and evaluated an automated method for identifying clouds in satellite imagery. An interest in pollution impacts on forests spurred me to develop, for my Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, a project to identify and model spectral and biochemical markers of ozone stress in pine needles. To better understand the relations governing human impacts on the environment, and how science characterizes such impacts, I have extensively pursued studies in Environmental Philosophy and History, Human Geography, and Science and Technology Studies. A desire to expand the scope of my research to more directly include human activity led me to ecosystem modeling of bioenergy crops. I also developed a high-spatial resolution framework for running this model that included downscaling global climate forcing data (HRCD). This work raised numerous questions regarding scale and uncertainty that had been smoldering since my early remote sensing work on clouds. I consider these questions crucial to addressing the challenges of understanding how human activities influence local, regional, and global earth processes, and vice-versa.

Research Interests

My aim is to understand the co-evolution of human and earth systems in order to inform decision-making, planning, and policy related to climate mitigation and adaptation. Science traditionally separates social and economic aspects of the world from “natural” ones, but humans have been an integral component of the earth system for millennia. As such, the resource and environmental challenges society faces today confound traditional analyses that attempt to reduce these challenges to either human drivers or environmental responses. To overcome the limitations of such analyses I develop and promote methods of scientific inquiry that fundamentally integrate humans into the earth system. Starting from this premise of a “whole” earth system enables me ask questions regarding the feasibility of specific climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in a global context, how extensive they need to be to achieve their desired goals, and what their unintended consequences may be for both humans and the environment.

One example of how I study two-way feedbacks between humans and the environment is through the direct coupling of an economic Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) with a biophysical Earth System Model (ESM) to create the integrated ESM (iESM). IAMs simulate economic activity and its associated energy, land use, emission, and pollution cycles while ESMs simulate the mass (carbon, water, etc.) and energy cycles of the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Merging IAMs and ESMs, or similar types of models at regional or local extent, is essential for understanding the efficacy of adaptation and mitigation strategies that may change over time in response to ongoing global change. However, such merging poses many serious challenges arising in part from the limits of: quantifying human activity, current understanding of the effects of this activity on biophysical systems, and reconciling scale mismatches between human activities and environmental responses.

To address these and associated challenges I investigate the effects of scale on our understanding of observed and simulated geographical data, the uncertainties of land, carbon, and water dynamics in ESMs and IAMs (and the iESM), the influences of changing and managed landscapes on carbon and climate, and two-way feedbacks between human and environmental systems. My diverse toolkit includes numerical modeling, remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), statistics, and laboratory and field data.

Education

  • Ph.D. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
  • M.S. Aerospace Engineering and Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2000
  • B.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, 1996

Experience

  • Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) - Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division/Earth Sciences Division (ESD), 2017-Present
  • Project Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) - Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division/Earth Sciences Division (ESD), 2012-2017
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, LBNL-Earth Sciences Division, 2011-2012
  • Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Berkeley, Energy Biosciences Institute, 2008-2010
  • Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, andManagement, 2005-2008; 2002-2004
  • Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Geography, 2007-2007
  • Staff Research Associate, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 2002-2002
  • Graduate Research Assistant, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1998-2000

Software Development

  • Moirai Land Data System, Version 3.1 open source release TBD; waiting for a bug fix in order to get the DOI from zenodo. This is an update to a software framework for assimilating global gridded and census land use and cover data to produce tabular data sets for initializing the land component of integrated assessment models. The new features include updated land suitability and protected area data and spatially-explicit soil and vegetation carbon data, both of which offer multiple outputs to choose from. A main feature of the framework is the capacity to aggregate the land data to an arbitrary set of geographic land units. This code was developed for the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), but is applicable to other global modeling applications.
  • California Natural and Working Lands Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Model (CALAND), Version 3 open source release 26 June 2019. A data-driven stock-and-flow model of the entire California landscape that estimates the integrated effects of several land management practices, wildfire, climate, land use/cover change, and forest biomass pathways on the landscape carbon budget and associated greenhouse gases. The primary outputs are changes between alternative and baseline scenarios.
  • Moirai Land Data System, Version 3 open source release 5 March 2019. A software framework for assimilating global gridded and census land use and cover data to produce tabular data sets for initializing the land component of integrated assessment models. A main feature is the capacity to aggregate the land data to an arbitrary set of geographic land units. This code was developed for the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), but is applicable to other global modeling applications.
  • Land Use Translator: Implemented a new algorithm for translating annual crop and pasture area data to plant functional types in the Community Land Model. A main feature is the capacity to vary the land cover conversion assumptions associated with land use change. This code is part of the integrated Earth System Model (iESM), which will be available as open source community code.
  • High Resolution Climate Downscaler: Developed an alternative method for statistically downscaling climate data that uses topography rather than upper atmospheric variables as the dependent variable.
  • Agro-BGC: Successfully implemented C4 photosynthesis, planting, harvest, irrigation, fertilization, seed growth, perennial crop phenology, and a disturbance handler for simulating bioenergy grass crops. The base model is Biome-BGC, and the Agro-BGC code had been available online until recently, and I intend to make the code publically available once again.

Grants, Awards, and Honors

  • NERSC high-performance computing Award (AY 2021; 1 million processor hours): CERC-WET - Using the Variable-Resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) to support fine-resolution analyses of water and energy resources in the western US and eastern China
  • NERSC high-performance computing Award (AY 2020; ~4.5 million processor hours): CERC-WET - Using the Variable-Resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) to support fine-resolution analyses of water and energy resources in the western US and eastern China
  • Senior Fellow, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, University of California, Berkeley
  • LBNL SPOT recognition award for exceptional creativity and dedication in the development of the California Natural and Working Lands Carbon Model (CALAND), Feb 2018
  • NERSC high-performance computing Award (AYs2018-2019; ~8 million processor hours): CERC-WET -Using the Variable-Resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) to support fine-resolution analyses of water and energy resourcesin the western US and eastern China
  • NCAR high-performance computing Award (FY2017-2018; 1,400,000 processor hours): The influence of initial land cover state on terrestrial feedbacks and anthropogenic emissions in the integrated Earth System Model (iESM)
  • Improve historical land-use and land-cover inputs to GCAM (FY2017-2018, ~$200K): Joint Global Change Research Institute Science Focus Area grant
  • IOP 2017 Outstanding Reviewer for Environmental Research Letters
  • Enhance a geospatial land data system to generate economic and physical land data inputs to the Global Assessment Model (GCAM) (FY2016, $40K): Joint Global Change Research Institute development grant
  • NCAR high-performance computing Award (FY2015-2016; 1,400,000 processor hours): The effects of land use/cover conversion assumptions on the global carbon cycle and climate in historical CESM simulations
  • Towards Integrated Assessment of Energy/Water/Climate Interactions (FY2012 –2014,~$1 million); PI: WDCollins; Primary author: AV Di Vittorio; Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, Integrated Assessment Research Program
  • Second best presentation: May 2008 Graduate Research Symposium; Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; University of California, Berkeley
  • Hannah & Frank Schwabacher Memorial Scholarship, Spring 2007
  • William Carroll Smith Fellowship, Spring 2008
  • President, UC Berkeley Ski Team, 1995-1996

Service and Leadership Activities

  • Founding co-chair of the human and earth system modeling working group of the analysis, integration, and modeling of the Earth system (AIMES) project (a Future Earth project), January 2020-present
  • Project lead: Climate Impact Modeling, Methods and Scenarios to Support Improved Energy and Water Systems Understanding, DOE US/China Clean Energy Research Center for Water-Energy Technologies (CERC-WET), March 2016 – Aug 2021; Co-lead: Soroosh Sorooshian
  • Member of technical advisory committee for the CEC-funded California Biopower Impacts project led by Dr. Kevin Fingerman at Humboldt State University, spring 2018 – summer 2021
  • Co-convener of European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2021 conference session: “Land use and land cover change effects on surface biogeophysics, biogeochemistry, and climate,” European Geosciences General Assembly, May 2021
  • Invited: Participant of Aspen Global Change Institute workshop on: Forest dynamics in the Anthropocene: Reconciling satellite and model-based estimates of forest carbon mitigation potentials. April 13-15, 2021
  • Co-convener of European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2020 conference session: “Land use and land cover change effects on surface biogeophysics, biogeochemistry, and climate,” European Geosciences General Assembly, May 2020
  • Guest editor for special issue of Geosciences titled “Humans in the Earth System,” fall 2019-fall 2020
  • Primary convener of the American Geophysical Union Fall 2019 conference session: “Impacts of climate change on water and energy systems,” American Geophysical Union, December 2019
  • Co-convener of the American Geophysical Union Fall 2019 conference session: “Interpretation and uncertainty quantification of climate, earth system, and integrated assessment models,” American Geophysical Union, December 2019
  • Co-convener of European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2019 conference session: “Land use and land cover change effects on surface biogeophysics, biogeochemistry, and climate,” European Geosciences General Assembly, April 2019
  • Co-convener of European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2019 conference session: “Impacts of climate and climate change on water and energy system,” European Geosciences General Assembly, April 2019
  • Co-convener of European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2018 conference session: “Land use and land cover change effects on surface biogeophysics, biogeochemistry, and climate,” EGU General Assembly 2018, Vienna, Austria, April 13, 2018
  • Invited: Workshop on linking earth system dynamics and social system modeling, hosted by the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System Human Dimensions Focus Research Group, May 23-25 2016, Boulder, CO
  • Invited: DOE BER Climate and Environmental Sciences Division programmatic planning meeting for Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) integrated assessment scenario development, May 20 2016, College Park, MD
  • Invited: DOE BER Climate and Environmental Sciences Division programmatic planning meeting for integrating earth system and integrated assessment land modeling, May 19 2016, College Park, MD
  • Invited: Panel reviewer for DOE Early Career Research Program solicitation DE-FOA-0001386, BER Climate and Environmental Sciences Division topic: Human Component of Earth System Models, Feb 2016
  • Science team lead for completing integrated Earth System Model (iESM) experiments, April 2014 – April 2015
  • Session organizer for Global Environmental Change session GC13J/GC22F at the AGU Fall 2014 Meeting, Dec 15-19 2014: The Effects of Anthropogenic Land-Use and Land-Cover Change on Local to Global Climate: Forcings and Feedbacks from the Past to the Future.
  • Invited: Breakout session lead for Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) interfaces to integrated assessment and impact and adaptation models, DOE BER Climate-Energy Modeling and Model Interdependencies Workshop, Oct 28-30 2014, College Park, MD
  • Co-coordinator of the weekly seminar series for the LBNL Climate Sciences Department; April 2012 – April 2013

Review Activities

  • International Journal of Remote Sensing; since 2008
  • Remote Sensing of Environment; since 2010
  • IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing; since 2010
  • Ecological Modelling; since 2011
  • Public Library of Science; since 2011
  • BioEnergy Research; since 2012
  • Science of the Total Environment; since 2013
  • IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing; since 2013
  • Earth’s Future; since 2013
  • Environmental Research Letters; since 2014
  • Forest Ecology and Management; since 2014
  • Forests; since 2015
  • Environmental Modelling and Software; since 2015
  • Science Bulletin; since 2016
  • Global Biogeochemical Cycles; since 2016
  • Geoscientific Model Development; since 2016
  • Science Bulletin, since 2016
  • Earth System Dynamics, since 2016
  • Landscape Ecology, since 2016
  • California Agriculture Journal, since 2017
  • Earth’s Future, since 2017
  • Biogeosciences, since 2017
  • Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, since 2018
  • Carbon Balance and Management, since 2019
  • Journal of Climate, since 2019
  • IPCC Special Report on Climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecossytems, January 2019
  • Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, since 2020
  • IPCC AR6 WGIII, March 2021. Chapter 7: Agricuture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses (AFOLU)

Other Web Pages

  • California Natural and Working Lands Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Model (CALAND v3) (June 26, 2019)
  • Moirai land data system, version 3 (March 5, 2019)
  • High Resolution Climate Downscaler
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