His research focuses on atmosphere-cryosphere interactions, principally related to the dynamics of sea ice and mountain snowpack. He uses a hierarchy of statistical and physically-based numerical modeling frameworks ranging from simple Markov chain models up to fully coupled global climate models. He uses hybrid statistical-dynamical modeling frameworks to investigate how atmospheric circulation impacts sea ice, and how these changes in sea ice feed back onto the atmosphere. He is interested in how climate variability influences the width of the marginal ice zone (MIZ) and has developed objective techniques for estimating MIZ width from remote sensing data. In his collaboration with mathematicians, he works on understanding complex processes such as melt pond evolution with the aim of optimizing the fidelity and computational expense of their representation in global climate models.