Summary of Research
My research focuses on temperature variability, with the aim to understand the physical processes that shape the variance and skewness of temperature distributions on spatial scales from local to global and timescales from daily to interannual. Currently I am working on a method to quantify the relative contributions of solar heating and horizontal atmospheric heat transport to daily temperature variance. As part of this project, I am also trying to document and understand large scale patterns in the persistence of temperature anomalies, as well as differences in the drivers of daytime and nighttime temperature distributions. By understanding the mechanisms driving temperature variance, I hope to improve our ability to understand, project, and mitigate heatwave risk.
Publications
Fried, C., and Huybers, P. (2024). A simple relationship between the magnitude and spatial extent
of global surface temperature anomalies. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2023GL106537.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL106537
Fried, C., Russell, B. J., Arnault, E. G., Huang, B., Lee, G. H., Englund, D., Henriksen, E., and
Fong, K. C. (2024). Performance limits due to thermal transport in graphene single-photon
bolometers. Physical Review Applied, 21(1), 014006.
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.21.014006
Fried, C., and Huybers, P. (2025) Dichotomized Area Reconstruction of Mean Anomalies: a scale-
invariant approach to paleoclimate reconstruction. (Accepted, Journal of Climate)
Huang, B., Arnault, E.G., Jung, W., Fried, C. et al. Thermal detection of single photons using Dirac fermions. Nat Commun 17, 3845 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70648-0
Fried, C. and Huybers, P. (2026) Spatially calibrated paleoclimate reconstructions demonstrate a
coherent Little Ice Age across independent proxy types. (In preparation)
Conference Talks:
Arnault, E., Huang, B., Jung, W., Fried, C., Watanabe, K., Taniguchi, T., ... and Fong, K. C.
(2023). Detecting the Internal Energy of Photons Through a Graphene Josephson Inductive
Readout, Part 1. In APS March Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2023, pp. M72-008).
Huang, B., Arnault, E., Jung, W., Fried, C., Taniguchi, T., Watanabe, K., ... and Fong, K. C.
(2023). Detecting the Internal Energy of Photons through a Graphene Josephson-Inductive
Readout, Part 2. In APS March Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2023, pp. M72-009).
Departmental Talks:
Fried, C. and Huybers, P. (2025) How Little was the Little Ice Age? Harvard Science of the Human Past Initiative.
Fried, C., Amdur, T. T., and Huybers, P. J. (2020, December). Scale-invariant Analysis of
Instrumental and Proxy Data Using Bernoulli Variables Demonstrates a Globally Coherent Little
Ice Age. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2020, pp. PP031-0013).
Fried, C., and Huybers, P. (2025) Dichotomized Area Reconstruction of Mean Anomalies (DARMA):
a scale-invariant method for paleoclimate reconstruction. University of Washington Program on Climate Change Summer Institute 2025.
Awards
Harvard College Scholar (2019)
Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize - for outstanding undergraduate thesis work (2023)
Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship (2023)
UW College of the Environment top scholar award (2025)
PCC Graubard Fellowship (2025)
ARCS Foundation Fellowship (2025)