Clements, Craig B

craig clements

Professor, Meteorology and Climate Science
Director, Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center

Email

Preferred: craig.clements@sjsu.edu

Telephone

Preferred: (408) 924-1677

CV, GoogleScholar, ResearchGate

Research Websites:

Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center

Fire Weather Research Laboratoty

Bio

Education

B.S.  Geography,   University of Nevada, Reno
M.S.  Meteorology, University of Utah
Ph.D. Geophysics,  University of Houston



Research and teaching focus 

Wildfire meteorology and fire weather, extreme fire behavior, mountain and boundary-layer meteorology, turbulence, and meteorological instrumentation.



Media

Scientific American, Rolling Stone, NYT,CNN, Time, NPR, PBS NOVA, Earth 



Awards

National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2012 

SJSU Research Foundation Early Career Investigator Award, 2010


 
Courses Taught

Metr 115: Wildfire in the Earth System (Area R)

Metr 163: Meteorological Instrumentation 

Metr 164: Introduction to Fire Weather

Metr 165: Mountain Meteorology



Selected Publications (* = student authors)

Drucker *  J., A.K. Kochanski, A. Farguell Caus, and C. B. Clements (2023) Live Fuel Moisture Climatology in California, Front. For. Glob. Change 6:1203536.

Bagley*, R. B. and C.B. Clements (2021) Extreme Fire Weather Associated with Nocturnal Drying in Coastal Terrain of California. Monthly Weather Review, 149 (8), 2497-2511. 

Aydell*, T. and C.B. Clements (2021) Dual-Polarimetric Ka-band Doppler Radar Observations of Wildfire Plumes. Monthly Weather Review, 149 (5), 1247-1264. 

Rodriguez*, B., Lareau, N. P., Kingsmill, D. E., & Clements, C. B. (2020) Extreme pyroconvective updrafts during a megafire. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2020GL089001. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089001

Arreola Amaya*, M. and C.B. Clements (2020) Evolution of plume core structures and turbulence during a wildland fire experiment. Atmosphere, 11, 842.

Brewer*, M. and C.B. Clements (2020) The 2018 Camp Fire: Meteorological analysis using in situ observations and numerical simulations, Atmosphere, 2020, 11, 47.

Clements, C. B., A. K. Kochanski, D. Seto, B. Davis*, C. Camacho*, N. P. Lareau, J. Contezac*, W. E. Heilman, S K. Krueger, B. Butler, J. Restaino, R. D. Ottmar, R. Vihnanek, J. Flynn, Jean-Baptiste Filippi, T. Barboni, D.   E. Hall, J. Mandel, M. A. Jenkins, and J. O’Brien, B. Hornsby, and C. Teske, (2019) The FireFlux II Experiment (FF2): A model-guided field experiment to understand fire-atmosphere interactions and fire spread.   International Journal of Wildland Fire, 28(4), 308-326.

Prichard S., Larkin N.K., Ottmar R.D., French N.H.F., Brown T., Baker K., Clements C., Dickinson M., Hudak A., Kochanski A., Linn R., Liu Y., Potter B., Mell W., Tanzer D., Urbanski S., Watts A. (2019) The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment – a plan for integrated, large fire-atmosphere field campaigns. Atmosphere, 10(2) 66.

Clements, C. B., N. P. Lareau, D. E. Kingsmill, C. L. Bowers*, C. P. Camacho*, R. Bagley* and B. Davis* (2018) The Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Experiment (RaDFIRE): Observations from the fire zone. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.,99, 2539-2559. 

Lareau, N.P., and Clements, C.B. (2017) The Mean and Turbulent Properties of a Wildfire Convective Plume, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 56(8), 2289–2299. 

Lareau, N. P. and C.B. Clements (2016) Environmental controls on pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus initiation and development, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 16, 4005-4022

Clements, CB, Lareau N, Seto* D, Contezac* J, Davis* B, Teske C, Zajkowski TJ, Hudak A, Bright B, Dickenson MB, Butler B, Jimenez D, Heirs JK, 2016: Fire weather conditions and fire-atmosphere interactions  observed during low-intensity prescribed fires —RxCADRE 2012. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 25(1), 90-101.

Clements, C.B., and Seto*, D., 2015: Observations of fire-atmosphere interactions and near-surface heat transport on a slope. Boundary-Layer Meteorology. 154, 409–426.

Clements, C. B. and A. Oliphant 2014: The California State University- Mobile Atmospheric Profiling System: A  facility for research and education in boundary-layer meteorology. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95, 1713–1724.

Charland*, A. and Clements, C. B., 2013: Kinematic structure of a wildland fire plume observed by Doppler lidar, Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 118, 3200-3212.

Seto*, D., C. B., Clements, and W.E. Heilman, 2013: Turbulence spectra measured during fire front passage.  Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 169, 195– 210.

Kiefer*, C. M., Clements, C. B., and B.E. Potter, 2012: Application of a Mini-Unmanned Aircraft System for In situ Monitoring of Fire Plume Thermodynamics Properties, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology,29(3), 309-315.

Seto*, D., and C. B., Clements, 2011: Fire Whirl Evolution Observed during a Valley Wind-Sea Breeze Reversal. Journal of Combustion, Vol. 2011, 13 pages. 

Clements, C. B., 2010: Thermodynamic structure of a grass fire plume. International Journal of Wildland Fire,  19, 895–902.

Clements, C. B., S. Zhong, S. Goodrick, J. Li, X. Bian, B.E. Potter, W. E. Heilman, J.J. Charney, R. Perna, M. Jang, D. Lee, M.Patel,S. Street and G. Aumann, 2007: Observing the Dynamics of Wildland Grass Fires: FireFlux- A Field Validation Experiment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 88(9), 1369-1382.

Links

www.fireweather.org