Qualifications
Licence, Master 1 (Provence), Master 2 (Bourgogne), Ph.D. (Provence)
PhD. in Physical Geography and Climatology
Research Areas
My research topic is oriented toward the climate variability in the Caribbean and especially the rainfall variability that constitute the main climate parameter of this region. Short scale and decadal variability of the Caribbean rainfall in relation with the sea surface temperature over the North Atlantic ocean and the East equatorial Pacific constitute one of my research interest. Previous results, based on multivariate statistical analysis, show that the main decadal signal come from a SST tri-pole over the North Atlantic Ocean associated to a more active ITCZ especially since 1970 ( Jury and Gouirand, 2011). The short time scale variability is more associated to the east Equatorial Pacific but this variability is not observed in the whole Caribbean region suggesting that the spatial distribution of the Caribbean rainfall, especially at seasonal and decadal time scale as both play an significant role in the Caribbean climate variability. At seasonal time scale, a warming of the tropical North Atlantic is also observed and seems to be related to a warm ENSO event and a negative NAO phase. The warming of the tropical north Atlantic seems to be associated to a wind-evaporation-see surface temperature feedback (Gouirand et al, 2012). Further analysis have to be done to better understand the processes involved in the Caribbean climate and that represents my main research interest.
Teaching Areas
Part of the Earth Science minor:
Climatology
A second level course in climatology and a third level course in climate variability and predictability. The 2nd level course introduces the basic of climatology (solar radiation, temperature, sea level pressure, precipitation distribution around the globe). The climate system is approached in a geographical way and the interaction between the main climate parameters as temperature, precipitation and pressure are explained. The lab sessions are based on MATLAB software to perform basic statistics and mapping. The 3rd year level course focus more on the climate variability at different time scale and presents the impact of the main climate oscillation as ENSO, NAO... on the regional climate. Ocean - atmosphere interactions are on particular interest. The use of different climate models (atmospheric model or ocean-atmosphere climate model) is also pointed out in this course related to the purpose of the analysis to perform.
Natural Hazard
A third level course in Natural Hazard in collaboration with a geologist. The Natural Hazard course aims to introduce the potential hazard representing a risk for the population. It also points out the notion of vulnerability and explain why some countries are more affected by a natural hazard than others. My contribution in that course is associated to the meteorological and hydrological hazards.
Participation in Caribbean Island Biogeography:
Pointed out the interaction between the Climate and the vegetation. Showing how the climate can modulate the vegetation distribution and the living world. Also highlight how the disease area can evolved according to change in temperature and precipitations.
Select Publications
Gouirand I, Jury M and Sing B (2012) An analysis of low and high frequency in summer climate variability around the Caribbean Antilles, Journal of climate, DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00269.1
Jury M, Gouirand I, (2011) Decadal climate variability in the Eastern Caribbean. Journal of Geophysical Research. VOL. 116, doi:10.1029/2010JD015107
Jury M, Gouirand I, (2011) Decadal climate variability in the Eastern Caribbean. Journal of Geophysical Research. VOL. 116,doi:10.1029/2010JD015107
Delire C, De Noblet-Ducoudre N, Sima A, Gouirand I, (2011) of the vegetation dynamics on climate variability; contrasting results from two modelling studies. Journal of Climate, DOI: 10.1175/2010JCLI3664.1.
Gouirand I, Linderholm H, Moberg A, Wohlfarth B, 2008, On the spatiotemporal characteristics of Fennoscandian tree-ring based summer temperature reconstructions, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 91, 1-25.
Gouirand I, Moron V, Zorita E, 2007, Teleconnections between ENSO and North Atlantic in en ECHO-G simulation of the 1000-1990 period,Geophysical Research Letters, 34, DOI 10. 1029/2006GL028852.
Gouirand I, Moberg A, Zorita E, 2007, Climate variability in Scandinavia for the past millennium simulated by an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model, Tellus 59A, 30-49.