Noah Molotch
Director, CWEST • Fellow, INSTAAR • Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder
INSTAAR

Ph.D., 2004, University of Arizona

Research Interests

Noah's research and teaching interests are focused on the processes controlling hydrologic fluxes in cold regions and within the greater Earth system. His research projects utilize ground-based observations, remote sensing, and computational modeling to obtain comprehensive understanding of hydrological processes; in particular the distribution of snow and ice. Additional projects aim at developing techniques for scaling hydrological processes and for designing ground-based observation networks tailored for integration with remote sensing and modeling. His current and past research projects explore the controls on Earth's snow distribution and associated cycling of water, energy and carbon. Noah's research has led to three central contributions in Mountain Hydrology: (1) deriving new methods of characterizing the spatial distribution of snowmelt and associated hydrologic responses; (2) developing fundamental theories regarding hydrologic sensitivity to changes in forest structure associated with snowfall interception, sub-canopy snowmelt dynamics and forest response to water availability; and (3) identifying the hydrologic importance of extreme precipitation events associated with large-scale atmospheric rivers.