User Profile: Jun Wang

Who Uses NASA Earth Science Data? Jun Wang, to study atmospheric composition and climate change; remote sensing of aerosols, clouds, and trace gases and the effects of these on global weather and climate.

Jun Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Jun Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Image courtesy of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Research interests: Atmospheric composition and climate change; remote sensing of aerosols, clouds, and trace gases and the effects of these on global weather and climate. Wang has been a science team member of NASA’s Glory; Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP); Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, Aura, Deep Space Climate Observatory; and Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory missions, and is the co-lead of the aerosol working group for NASA’s Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events mission.

Current research focus: Wang and his colleagues are studying the impacts and contributions of atmospheric aerosols and other particulates to atmospheric composition, global climate, and storm formation. This research includes examining the contributions of biomass burning in Central America to Southeastern U.S. weather patterns; satellite-depicted decadal change of Asian aerosol emissions and the effects of this on regional and global climate; and the use of satellite data to study changes in global surface particulate concentrations since 1999. “I hope to integrate satellite data with atmospheric chemistry models to understand how atmospheric aerosols are changing and how this change affects climate,” says Wang.

Data Products Used:

Research findings: Wang and his colleagues used satellite data to build a conceptual model to help demonstrate the contributions of smoke and other aerosols from the burning of Central American biomass to severe storms in the Southeastern U.S. In another research project, Wang and his team developed methods of explicitly modeling aerosol phase transitions and quantitatively investigating the implications of these phase changes to atmospheric aerosol forcing, visibility, cirrus cloud formation, and heterogeneous chemistry. Wang’s team also devised methods of using satellite data to characterize wildfires, study fire weather, estimate aerosol emissions, and improve prediction of volcanic SO2 transport.

Read About the Research:

Wang, J., et al. (2012). Top-Down Estimate of Dust Emissions through Integration of MODIS and MISR Aerosol Retrievals with the GEOS-Chem adjoint model. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(8). doi:10.1029/2012GL051136/full

Wang, J., et al. (2010). Improved algorithm for MODIS satellite retrievals of aerosol optical thickness over land in dusty atmosphere: Implications for air quality monitoring in China. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114(11): 2575-2583. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2010.05.034

Wang, J. & S.A. Christopher. (2006). Mesoscale modeling of Central American smoke transport to the United States: 2. Smoke regional radiative impacts on surface energy budget and boundary layer evolution. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 111(D14). doi:10.1029/2005JD006720

 

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