Dr. Hobbins's research focus is the dynamics of evapotranspiration (ET) and evaporative demand (Eo), particularly with respect to drought, operational and seasonal forecasts, climate-scale predictions, and secular trends and variabilities. He is developing operational tools to use these dynamics in monitoring and early warning of drought, ecological modeling, and to support irrigation scheduling. His primary role at NOAA is to develop accurate, live, daily, long-term reanalyses of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) intended for use (i) in CONUS in drought monitoring and early warning and in the USGS National Water Census, and (ii) in FEWS NET countries for drought early warning and food security monitoring. A significant part of this effort is the development of the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI). He also supports short- and seasonal-scale ETo forecasts, and is working with USGS Climate Science Centers in generating climate-scale ETo predictions for ecological modeling.
keywords
atmospheric evaporative demand, pan evaporation, reference evapotranspiration, potential evaporation, actual evapotranspiration, climate-scale predictions, seasonal and short-range forecasts of evapotranspiration and evaporative demand, evaporative demand reanalyses, data assimilation, food security in developing countries, famine early warning, drought monitoring and early warning, land-atmosphere interactions, irrigation scheduling, variability and trend analyses
