Professor Gudrun Magnusdottir is interested in atmospheric and climate dynamics. In her work she uses observations as well as a hierarchy of numerical models to study dynamical processes in the atmosphere, and climate variability.

One focus of her research centers on investigating feedback mechanisms influencing the unprecedented high-latitude trends in several climate variables over recent decades.

Another focus of her research centers on tropical-extratropical as well as troposphere-stratosphere dynamical interactions.

A third focus centers on the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), its variability on different timescales, and what controls it in the climate system.

Other areas include

1. sea ice and its climatic effects,
2. variability in the tropics on different time scales,
3. climate modes including the North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation: Forcing mechanisms and trends in observations, and finally
4. geometrical fluid dynamics and balanced flow.