Read NASA News Release on Prof. Luo's research

Broadly speaking, my research interest is satellite remote sensing of clouds and water vapor in the context of climate and climate change. I work on both remote sensing algorithm development and using satellite products to study atmospheric moist physics. Two specific subjects I investigate are tropical deep convection and upper-tropospheric humidity (UTH) . I also use in situ measurements from aircraft and radiosondes and am always interested in bringing in model simulation to help interpret observations.

On satellite remote sensing, I am currently a member of NASA's CloudSat/CALIPSO Science Team (PI on "hot tower" research) and of NOAA's Climate Data Record (CDR) Team (PI on UTH CDR). On in situ measurements, I am a Science Leader for NASA's SEAC4RS field campaign. I am also a team member of European Union's MOZAIC project - an effort to use commercial aircraft to routinely measure humidity, ozone and other trace gases to help us understand climate change.

EAS 488/B8800: Climate & Climate Change (syllabus)

EAS 417/B9104: Satellite Meteorology (syllabus)

EAS 311/B9014: Fundamentals of Atmospheric Science (short syllabus)

It's important to note that Atmospheric Science is a quantitative field. A common misunderstanding among many students is that it's mostly descriptive (like what we see on Weather Channel). But the truth is quite the opposite: our primary teaching/research tool is math, physics and computer programming (in fact, the weather forecastes seen on TV are largely based on the output of supercomputers sovling partial-differential equations of the atmosphere), so strong quantitative skills are important prerequisite for my classes.

(PhD) Hanii Takahashi

(MS) Ricardo Anderson

(Alumni) Dr. G. Y. Liu (postdoc, 2007-2010), Cheila Benavides (MS, 2010), Mya M. Teiktin (MS, 2010)