Kerry Emanuel is working on various aspects of moist convection in the atmosphere, and on tropical cyclones. He is interested in fundamental properties of moist convection, including the scaling of convective velocities and the nature of the diurnal cycle of convection over land. His group has developed a promising technique for inferring tropical cyclone activity from coarse-grain output of climate models or re-analyses.

The MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar (MASS) is a student-run weekly seminar series within PAOC. Seminar topics include all research concerning the atmosphere and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars usually take place on Monday from 12-1pm followed by a lunch with graduate students. Besides the seminar, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. The seminar series is run by graduate students and is intended mainly for students to interact with individuals outside the department, but faculty and post docs certainly participate.