Research

My work uses observations, climate-model ensembles, statistical methods, and regional downscaling to understand climate variability and improve projections of regional change. I am especially interested in heat, hydroclimate, emergent constraints, and the separation of forced change from internal variability.

I work in the Climate, Pollution, and Solutions group, using the Western US Dynamically Downscaled Dataset (WUS-D3) with PyPSA to explore how climate and weather data can inform power-grid and renewable-energy simulations.

Projects

Madera County Drought Dashboard

A site for Madera County residents to use to learn about resources for addressing dry wells or emergency water needs. It also contains a dashboard to view recent trends in drought, groundwater storage, snowpack, rainfall, and temperatures against historical records.

California DWR, U.S. Drought Monitor, USDA NRCS, NOAA CPC · Python and vanilla JavaScript on Vercel

Roof (m²)

A web app that projects rooftop solar generation and rainwater capture based on satellite imagery. All you need is an address or GPS location!

Next.js, TypeScript, Google Maps, NASA POWER · Source

World Equity Split

A live calculator for the market-cap allocation between U.S. and ex-U.S. tradable equities, with dollar and ETF share-count modes.

Vanguard VT, VTI, and VXUS · Nasdaq market data · Vanilla JavaScript on GitHub Pages

Notes

  1. Test note July 24, 2026

Selected publications

Google Scholar
  1. Forced Component Estimation Statistical Method Intercomparison Project (ForceSMIP) Robert C. J. Wills, Clara Deser, Karen A. McKinnon, …, Stephen Cropper, et al. Journal of Climate · 2026
  2. Temporal Coverage over Density: Parsimonious Training-Set Design for ML Climate Downscaling Karandeep Singh, Stefan Rahimi, Chad W. Thackeray, Stephen Cropper, Alex Hall Preprint · 2026
  3. Soil water percolation and nutrient fluxes as a function of topographical, seasonal and soil texture variation in Central Amazonia, Brazil Jardel Ramos Rodrigues, Kurt C. Solander, Stephen Cropper, et al. Hydrological Processes · 2024
  4. An overview of the Western United States Dynamically Downscaled Dataset (WUS-D3) Stefan Rahimi, Lei Huang, Jesse Norris, …, Stephen Cropper, et al. Geoscientific Model Development · 2024
  5. Revisiting a Constraint on Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity From a Last Millennium Perspective Stephen Cropper, Chad W. Thackeray, Julien Emile-Geay Geophysical Research Letters · 2023
  6. Comparing deuterium excess to large-scale precipitation recycling models in the tropics Stephen Cropper, Kurt Solander, Brent D. Newman, Obbe A. Tuinenburg, Arie Staal, Jolanda J. E. Theeuwen, Chonggang Xu npj Climate and Atmospheric Science · 2021