Marwan Katurji

Marwan specializes in surface-atmosphere interactions, and has undertaken numerous research projects throughout New Zealand, the United States and Antarctica. His research interest is around modelling, simulating, measuring and analyzing atmospheric phenomena, and he uses advanced field measurement and numerical modeling techniques to tackle my research objectives.

He is particularly interested in coherent turbulent structures (CTS) within the first 1km of our atmosphere above ground level (also called the atmospheric boundary-layer). CTS is a unique fabric of turbulence that controls the spatial variability of temperature and moisture across our landscape. He conducts laboratory and field experiments using state of the art in situ, aerial, remote sensing measurement systems, and also high resolution numerical weather simulations to develop a better understanding of these coherent turbulence structures.

Some of Marwan’s research projects involve wind turbulence for wind energy applications, air pollution dispersion modelling, forest canopy turbulence measurements, Antarctic meteorology, wild-land fire weather and fire-atmospheric interactions, and stable boundary layers in complex terrain.

He has a growing interest in Antarctic Dry Valley climates because of the extreme environment on the continent. In Antarctica Marwan is trying to understand mesocyclones (or Antarctic storms) in the Ross Sea Region.