Mohammed Ombadi

Personal Pronouns

he/him

Education

• 2021, Ph.D., University of California Irvine, Civil & Environmental Engineering
• 2017, M.Sc., University of California Irvine, Civil & Environmental Engineering
• 2014, B.Sc., University of Khartoum, Civil Engineering

Teaching

• Winter 2024, Climate Change: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Problem Solving
• Fall 2024, Machine Learning in Earth & Environmental Sciences

Research Interests

• Hydrology
• Machine Learning and Causal Inference
• Environmental Remote Sensing
• Climate Extremes
• Resilience of Ecosystems

Professional Service

• Peer review: Nature Geoscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Water Resources Research, Hydrology and Earth Systems Sciences (HESS), Geophysical Research Letters, Remote Sensing, Water, Journal of Hydrology
• Proposal review: National Science Foundation (NSF), US Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Biography

Mohammed Ombadi “Mo” is an Assistant Professor in the department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering. Ombadi has a keen interest in understanding and quantifying climate change impacts on hydroclimatic extremes. From heavy storms and floods to extreme heatwaves and droughts, Ombadi’s research focuses on the changing characteristics of these events and their impacts on our daily lives.

His early research focused on the use of state-of-the-art data-driven methods such as causal inference, information theory, nonlinear dynamics and machine learning in the analysis of environmental systems. More recent work has explored global warming impact on extreme events such as rainfall extremes, using a combination of observations and model simulations. Additionally, recent work has focused on developing new techniques to measure resilience of environmental systems to extreme events, with the ultimate goal of informing mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate change.

His research work has been acknowledged with awards from the American Geophysical Union, Orange County Engineering Council, UC Irvine School of Engineering and U.S./China Clean Energy Research Center for Water-Energy Technologies (CERC-WET).

Prior to his appointment at the University of Michigan, Ombadi was a Post-doctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He holds a PhD and MSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of California Irvine and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from University of Khartoum.

Awards

• 2020, Outstanding Young Engineer Award, Orange County Engineering Council (OCEC)
• 2020, American Geophysical Union (AGU) Outstanding Student Presentation Award (OSPA)
• 2020-21, Henry Samueli Endowed Fellowship University of California Irvine School of Engineering
• 2021, U.S./China Clean Energy Research Center for Water-Energy Technologies (CERC-WET) Fellow for Outstanding Contributions to Research
• 2022, Second place winner, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Research SLAM

Publications

– Full list of publications on Google Scholar: Mohammed Ombadi

– Selected Publications:

• Ombadi, M.* , Risser, M., Rhoades, A. and Varadharajan, C. (2023). A warming-induced reduction in snow fraction amplifies rainfall extremes. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06092-7
• Ombadi, M.* , Nguyen, P., Hsu, K. and Sorooshian, S. (2018). Developing intensity‐duration‐frequency (IDF) curves from satellite‐based precipitation: Methodology and evaluation. Water Resources Research https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022929
• Ombadi, M.* , Nguyen, P., Hsu, K. and Sorooshian, S. (2020). Evaluation of methods for causal discovery in hydrometeorological systems. Water Resources Research https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027251
• Ombadi, M.* & Varadharajan, C. (2020). Urbanization and aridity mediate distinct salinity response to floods in rivers and streams across the contiguous United States . Water Research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2022.118664
• Ombadi, M.* , Nguyen, P., Hsu, K. and Sorooshian, S. (2021). Complexity of hydrologic basins: A chaotic dynamics perspective. Journal of Hydrology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126222

In the News

• 02/20/2024, Inside Climate News, Another Climate Impact Hits the Public’s Radar: A Wetter World Is Mudslide City
• 08/11/2023, Connecticut Radio/NPR, Why ‘natural’ disasters aren’t as natural as their name suggests
• 26/09/2023, Wired, Why Rain Is Getting Fiercer on a Warming Planet
• 21/09/2023, Weather Underground, The Weather Channel, What Does Climate Change Have To Do With Extreme Rainfall Events?
• 19/09/2023, The Conversation, As extreme downpours trigger flooding around the world, scientists take a closer look at global warming’s role
• 28/08/2023, Voices of America, More Rain, Less Snow Brings Havoc to India’s Himalayan Region
• 23/08/2023, Wall Street Journal, Extreme Heat, Floods, Fire: Was Summer 2023 the New Normal?
• 17/08/2023, BBC, More rain, less snow are turning Himalayas dangerous
• 17/08/2023, ABC News [Live TV], Himalayas experiencing more rainfall, a Nature study finds
• 17/07/2023, Vox, The “new abnormal”: The rise of extreme flooding, briefly explained
• 29/06/2023, Scientific American, Snowcapped Mountains Are Turning into Dangerous Rain-Soaked Slopes
• 28/06/2023, New York Times, Climate Change Can Turn Snow Into Rain, Raising Risks in Mountain Zones
• 28/06/2023, Associated Presss, Warming causes more extreme rain, not snow, over mountains. Scientists say that’s a problem
• 28/06/2023, Inside Climate News, Rainfall Extremes Increasingly Threaten Mountain Regions and Areas Downstream From Them
• 28/06/2023, New Scientist, Climate change is turning snow to rain and raising risk of floods
• 28/06/2023, Science Museum Group, EXTREME RAINFALL COULD AFFECT A QUARTER OF THE GLOBAL POPULATION
• 28/06/2023, Publico, A chuva vai ser uma ameaça cada vez maior nas montanhas com o aquecimento global
• 28/06/2023, Down To Earth, Rockies, Alps, Himalayas: More rain, less snow in Northern hemisphere mountains as temperatures rise, says report