PSU professor to aid Korean institute in study of climate trends

As one of four professors across the nation working on a project to assess the impact of climate change, Portland State geography professor Heejun Chang will use part of $1.3 million to study global climate change on a regional level.

Chang said his goal is to divide the globe into 20-kilometer by 20-kilometer grids so that global climate models will more accurately represent the subtle differences between regions. Chang will use about $150,000 of the $1.3 million grant from the Sustainable Water Resources program at the Ministry of Science and Technology in Korea.

Chang will work in partnership with Sejong University’s HydroGIS Laboratory and Meteorological Research Institute’s Climate Research Laboratory during the four-year project, called “Application Technology for Climate Change Impact Assessment on Korean Water Resources.”

Professor Chang, who received his doctorate from Penn State University, will visit Korea once or twice a year to work with the project’s other investigators.

The team of scientists Chang has worked with on this project comes from various physical science backgrounds. Together, they are the authors of several papers concerned with climate research and the regional impact of climate change.