The focus of my research group is the fundamental dynamics in atmospheric circulation and chemical transport. Through a combination of theory and numerical modeling, we develope toolboxes to understand the global circulation of the atmosphere, from tropical Hadley cell circulations to extratropical storm systems, from tropospheric extreme weather to stratospheric polar vortex breakdown events, and from transport of water vapor to stratosphere-troposphere exchange of ozone. These processes are instrumental to our understanding of weather extremes (e.g. winter blizzards or heat waves), hydrological extremes (e.g., drought or flooding), or extreme air pollution. Our research can be categorized in two interrelated themes.

• Global atmospheric circulation and regional weather extremes
• Transport of atmospheric moisture and chemical species

For example, transport and mixing near the tropopause (~10km above the ground) can be illustrated in the animantion of Ertel’s Potential Vorticity (left) and O3 mixing ratio (right):

Recent Publications

Wang, Ziwei, Gang Chen, Yu Gu, Bin Zhao, Qiao Ma, Shuxiao Wang and Kuo‐Nan Liou, 2019: Large‐scale meteorological control on the spatial pattern of wintertime PM 2.5 pollution over China , Atmospheric Science Letters, 1--9, doi:10.1002/asl.938.

Norris, Jesse, Gang Chen and J. David Neelin, 2019: Changes in frequency of large precipitation accumulations over land in a warming climate from the CESM Large Ensemble: the roles of moisture, circulation and duration , Journal of Climate, JCLI--D--18--0600.1, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0600.1.

Li, Chao, Francis Zwiers, Xuebin Zhang, Gang Chen, Jian Lu, Guilong Li, Jesse Norris, Yaheng Tan, Ying Sun and Min Liu, 2019: Larger increases in more extreme local precipitation events as climate warms , Geophysical Research Letters, 2019GL082908, doi:10.1029/2019GL082908.

Sun, Wenxiu, Peter Hess, Gang Chen and Simone Tilmes, 2019: How waviness in the circulation changes surface ozone: a viewpoint using local finite-amplitude wave activity , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 1--31, doi:10.5194/acp-2019-383.

Norris, Jesse, Gang Chen and J. David Neelin, 2018: Thermodynamic versus dynamic controls on extreme precipitation in a warming climate from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble , Journal of Climate, JCLI--D--18--0302.1, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0302.1.