Jase Bernhardt

Associate Professor of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability Hofstra University

  • Hempstead NY

Dr. Bernhardt has had a lifelong passion for studying weather and climate. His current research focuses hurricane preparedness.

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Spotlight

1 min

Teaching the Dangers of Snow Squalls

Dr. Jase E. Bernhardt, associate professor of geology, environment, and sustainability and director of meteorology, was featured on WPSU/Pennsylvania Cable and on The Weather Channel’s Weather Geek podcast about his VR research that demonstrates the danger of driving in a snow squall and the science behind these dangerous bursts of weather.

Jase Bernhardt

1 min

Local Area Braces for Snow

Jase E. Bernhardt, associate professor of geology, environment, and sustainability and director of meteorology at Hofstra University, talked to WCBS-TV about the string of snow storms forecasted for the New York metropolitan area recently.

Jase Bernhardt

1 min

Work on Snow Squall VR Simulation Moves Forward

Last year, Dr. Jase Bernhardt, Hofstra associate professor of geology, environment, and sustainability, was awarded a $100,000 Road to Zero Community Traffic Safety Grant from the National Safety Council, to develop a VR simulation of driving in a snow squall. The project aims to share information about the onset of snow squalls, the importance of heeding emergency weather advisories, and how drivers should respond if they are on the road when a snow squall occurs. Dr. Bernhardt has partnered with meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in State College, PA, and was in Pennsylvania recently to participate in a press conference and conduct field research supporting his work. The press conference was promoted on PAcast – the official website of the Pennsylvania state government. Local news stations like NBC affiliate WJAC-TV; ABC affiliate WHTM-TV; WPMT-TV Fox43 News; and PennWatch covered the press conference.

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Media

Biography

Jase Bernhardt is an associate professor in the Department of the Geology, Environment and Sustainability at Hofstra University and also director of the department's MA Sustainability program. At Hofstra, Jase instructs courses in sustainability, climate change, and meteorology and leads research in the area of severe weather warning communication. His research is currently being funded by the National Science Foundation and New York Sea Grant, the former a project to engage student teams in research, and the latter an initiative to improve rip current outreach to Long Island Latinx communities. Bernhardt's past research has been funded by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, New York Sea Grant, and Hofstra University, and has resulted in peer review publications and coverage in media outlets such as The Washington Post, Reuters, and The Weather Channel.

Industry Expertise

Environmental Services

Areas of Expertise

Rip Tide safety
Hurricanes
Climatology
Climate Change
Weather
Climate
Environmental History
Meteorology
Virtual Reality to Promote Evacuation

Education

Penn State University

PhD

Geography

2016

Penn State University

MS

Geography

2013

Cornell University

BS

Atmospheric Science

2011

Media Appearances

Caribbean Braces for Hurricane Beryl

RTVI  online

2024-07-02

Dr. Jase Bernhardt appeared on RTVI (Russian Television International) to talk about the path and impact of Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean.

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Accelerating trend of potentially dangerous warmer weather being driven by climate change, experts say

Newsday  print

2024-06-22

Dr. Jase Bernhardt was interviewed by Newsday about the June 2024 heat wave Long Island experienced, and if it can be linked to climate change.

The article says that heat advisory across much of the eastern half of the United States was the result of a “heat dome.”

“That dome is allowing hot, humid air to come up from the Gulf of Mexico and the southeast U.S. straight into the Northeast and straight into New York,” said Dr. Bernhardt. “Also, given that we have direct sun angle, the longest days of the year, it’s allowing very hot days.”

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Flood and Flood Insurance Statistics

MoneyGeek  online

2024-03-11

Professor Jase Bernhardt offered insights on flood statistics to MoneyGeek.com. He discussed the financial impact of floods on consumers and how they can mitigate the harm of a natural disaster.

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Research Focus

Hofstra University Uses VR To Put You Face To Face With A Category 3 Hurricane

Dr. Bernhardt's VR project looks to improve storm warnings and and preparation by putting you right in the middle of a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 111 to 129 mph.

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Rip Current Research Shares in $1.3 Million Grant

2022-02-28

A Hofstra project to build bilingual communication warning tools about rip currents is one of eight coastal research programs receiving $1.3 million from New York Sea Grant (NYSG). Leading the Hofstra research is Dr. Jase Bernhardt, Assistant Professor of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability.

Rip currents pose a hazard to visitors to beaches in Long Island and across the nation. Groups such as the National Weather Service and local municipalities provide warnings and education materials about rip currents to the public. According to Dr. Bernhardt, signage and education often do not take into account the region’s large Spanish-speaking population. “There is a dearth of safety materials in languages other than English,” he said, “and that can lead to fatalities.”

Dr. Bernhardt’s project aims to improve rip current awareness and understanding, with a focus on enhanced risk communication methods and products to support the Long Island Latinx community.

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Research Grants

Rip Current Research Shares in $1.3 Million Grant

New York Sea Grant

2022-02-28

A Hofstra project to build bilingual communication warning tools about rip currents is one of eight coastal research programs receiving $1.3 million from New York Sea Grant (NYSG). Leading the Hofstra research is Dr. Jase Bernhardt, Assistant Professor of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability.

Rip currents pose a hazard to visitors to beaches in Long Island and across the nation. Groups such as the National Weather Service and local municipalities provide warnings and education materials about rip currents to the public. According to Dr. Bernhardt, signage and education often do not take into account the region’s large Spanish-speaking population. “There is a dearth of safety materials in languages other than English,” he said, “and that can lead to fatalities.”

Bernhardt’s project aims to improve rip current awareness and understanding, with a focus on enhanced risk communication methods and products to support the Long Island Latinx community. More info: https://news.hofstra.edu/2022/02/28/rip-current-program-shares-in-1-3-million-grant-awarded-for-ny-sea-grant-research/

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Articles

Preparing Geographers for Interdisciplinary Research: Graduate Training at the Interface of the Natural and Social Sciences

The Professional Geographer

Russell C. Hedberg II, Arielle Hesse, Doug Baldwin, Jase Bernhardt, David Pahl Retchless, Jamie E. Shinn

2015-09-01

Recent debates about the state of geography raise valuable questions about how the discipline can and should change in response to shifting institutional realities. Focusing on the breadth and interdisciplinarity of geography, these discussions often overlook the role of pedagogy—particularly graduate training—in adapting the discipline to new institutional landscapes. Drawing on experiences as current and recent geography doctoral students, we identify institutional seedlings of opportunity that can be cultivated toward a spectrum of alternative doctoral training models. These alternatives offer significant opportunities to better prepare early-career geographers for success and to solidify geography's position as a leader in interdisciplinary research.

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The impacts of long-lived jet contrail ‘outbreaks’ on surface station diurnal temperature range

International Journal of Climatology

Jase Bernhardt, Andrew M. Carleton

2015-03-14

Multiple persistent jet aviation contrails – contrail ‘outbreaks’ – occur frequently over certain portions of the Continental United States (CONUS). The artificial cloudiness generated by contrail outbreaks alters the atmospheric radiation budget, potentially impacting the surface air temperature, particularly the diurnal temperature range (DTR), or difference between daytime maximum and nighttime minimum temperatures. This study evaluates the hypothesis that contrail outbreaks reduce the DTR relative to clear-sky conditions. We utilize a database of longer-lived (>4 h duration) jet contrail outbreaks for the CONUS previously determined from interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery, for the January and April months of 2008 and 2009. The outbreak impact on DTR was determined by comparing maximum and minimum temperatures at pairs of surface weather stations (one outbreak and one non-outbreak) across two regions of climatologically high outbreak frequency; the South in January, and Midwest in April. We ensured that each station pair selected had broadly similar land use-land cover, soil moisture, and synoptic air mass conditions. For outbreaks in the South (January), there was a statistically significant reduction of DTR at the outbreak versus non-outbreak stations. This result was similar to that obtained for a smaller subset of outbreaks for which lower-level clouds could be confirmed as being absent (from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) output). For the Midwest (April), the results are mixed; statistically different for satellite-retrieved outbreaks, but not significantly different for the NARR-validated dataset. These results suggest that persistent jet contrails should be considered in short-term weather forecasting, and for their potential influence on the climatology of more frequently impacted areas.

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Determining Regional Weather Patterns from a Historical Diary

American Meteorological Society

Jase Bernhardt

2015-02-25

Prior to the twentieth century, there was a dearth of official local weather and climate observations for much of the United States outside of major cities. Useful information can be gleaned, however, from primary accounts, such as historical diaries kept by farmers and others whose interests were tied to the land. Herman Smith, a farmer in west-central New York State, kept a detailed record of daily life, including weather characteristics such as temperature, precipitation, and wind, for his farm near Covert. Two full years of his diary, 1884 and 1886, were recently published and selected for study. Although typically not numeric data, the lexicon used in the diary to describe relative heat and cold allow Smith’s observations to be analyzed semiquantitatively in order to determine the weather experienced that year including factors affecting the growing season, as well as significant weather and climatic events. The analysis demonstrates that for Covert—located in an area of topographic variability and proximal to the Finger Lakes—microclimatic effects occasionally dominated over the synoptic circulation. This finding was further reinforced by comparison of Smith’s 1886 records with those of a nearby farmer. Meanwhile, Smith’s accounts also establish an inextricable link between his agricultural practices and the weather and climate patterns he observed. These findings underscore the value of acquiring climatic data from nonconventional sources for places and times when reliable data may be nonexistent in order to better understand how climate, and its impacts on the environment, have varied over time, across multiple scales.

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