In the Land of the Dry

It’s time for an update long overdue : I have moved to Los Angeles to take a position at the University of Southern California. After a few months of getting odds and ends worked out, writing grants, papers, ordering furniture and other highly intellectual tasks, I am finally writing from a beautiful, ergonomic office where I could see myself spending way too much time.

Here is my new webpage. Please have a look, your feedback would be much appreciated.

As an Earth Scientist, it’s interesting to live in a place like this : between seismic activity, air pollution and very dry conditions (projected to worsen), LA combines some of the worst environmental risks you can imagine. But hey, isn’t sunlight worth a few sacrifices ?

I don’t know if that’s an “entropic principle” of sorts, but the pollution in my life has kept increasing since I left my quiet and wooded hometown of Le Vésinet (France), first for Paris, then New York, Atlanta, and now Los Angeles. As my environmental awareness grew, so have my environmental problems. Perhaps it would be all too easy to give lessons about a sustainable lifestyle if I did not have to fight very hard to design and improve mine. Which is far from perfect, but it is essential that I experience the problems I aim to solve.

Since I am often asked about droughts in Southern California, here is a recent explanation of both medieval and (projected) XXIst century droughts by none other than my former advisor Richard Seager. Those suffering from  information-thirst may quench it here.