AOSC Seminar by Yuan Wang, 04/24/2026
AOSC Seminar
Yuan Wang
Stanford University
Title
From Microphysics to Climate: Understanding Clouds and Aerosols across Scales
Abstract
Clouds and aerosols are central regulators of Earth’s energy balance, hydrological cycle, and atmospheric chemistry, yet their interactions remain among the largest sources of uncertainty in weather and climate prediction. These processes originate at the microphysical scale, but their impacts propagate across convective, regional, and global scales through complex dynamical feedbacks. Bridging this scale gap is therefore essential to developing a more complete and predictive understanding of the climate system. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to: 1) develop an AI/MLbased cloud microphysics scheme to represent warm-rain formation in climate models; 2) improve the representation of aerosol–cloud interactions in the cloud-resolving and firecoupled simulations of pyroCb, a fire-induced deep convective system; and 3) assess the role of clouds in the reversibility of future global surface temperature change under the climate mitigation strategies on decadal timescales. Taken together, our findings highlight the need for sharper analysis tools and richer process-level atmospheric observations to advance a mechanistic understanding of clouds and aerosols in a fully coupled Earth system context.
Bio
Dr. Yuan Wang is an assistant professor of Earth System Science and a center fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Yuan got his Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric Sciences from Texas A&M University. He and his group conduct research related to aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions and their climatic implications, aerosol properties and haze formation, cloud microphysics and dynamics, and the assessment of the greenhouse gas/aerosol forcings in the Earth’s system. To address those scientific questions, his group develop and employ multiscale weather and climate models and machine learning approaches in combination with space-borne and in situ measurements. Yuan was awarded the AGU James B. Macelwane Medal and James Holton Award, the AMS Henry Houghton Award, and the NSF CAREER Award. Currently, Yuan serves as an inaugural Editor-in-Chief of npj Clean Air and an Editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
Contact
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AOSC Seminar
Pre-seminar refreshment: N/A
Seminar: 3:30-4:30pm, Room: ATL 2400(only when in-person)
Meet-the-Speaker: 4:30-5:00pm, Room: ATL 3400(only when in-person) [For AOSC Students only]
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