The overall mission of the department is to conduct cutting-edge research in atmospheric sciences with high international visibility, and to provide students with high quality education and diverse research opportunities.

Brief History

The discipline of atmospheric sciences at Zhejiang University was founded in 1936 by the prominent Chinese meteorologist, Chu Kochen. Since then, it experienced several decades of reconfiguration. In 1998, the discipline of atmospheric sciences was merged into the Department of Earth Sciences (now School of Earth Sciences). In 2016, the Department of Atmospheric Sciences was established within School of Earth Sciences.

Faculty

The department currently has 14 faculty members. Our faculty members have received a few international awards such as WMO (world meteorology organization) Norbert-Gerbier-Mumm award and Richard Goody award for radiation. Our faculty members have been contributing to the IPCC Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports on climate change, and published monographs on cloud and precipitation.

Research Area

The faculty and students in the department aim to better understand the atmosphere and its interaction with the ocean, land, biosphere, and human activities. Our diverse research area ranges in size from a single cloud droplet and aerosol particle to the global scale circulation. Major research areas include global and regional climate change, extreme weather, cloud physics, atmospheric radiation and remote sensing, atmospheric chemistry and pollution, ocean carbon cycle and ocean acidification, and climate engineering. Centered on these research areas, our faculty members have been constantly publishing peer-reviewed papers in mainstream journals such as Journal of Climate, Climate Dynamics, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

    Global climate change

Use climate models, data analysis, and statistical methods to understand the behavior the global and regional climate system and its response to external forcings. Specific research topics include: sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction, statistical analysis of major climate modes such as ENSO and PDO, interactions between climate change and the carbon cycle, and climate response to geoengineering (climate engineering). 

    Atmospheric dynamics

Using observational data, synoptic analysis, and high-resolution mesoscale model to understand the mechanism or physical processes of severe weather, such as torrential rainfall, tropical cyclones and Mei-yu front. Specific research topics include: quantitative precipitation analysis, genesis and rainfall distribution of tropical cyclone, dynamic interaction between synoptic and mesoscale weather system, numerical modeling of severe convective system.

    Atmospheric chemistry and environment 

This research area focuses on aerosol chemistry, photochemistry and laboratory experiments. There are different analysis experimental instruments such as OC/EC analyzer, soluble ions IC, XRF and ICP for elemental analysis, and GC-MS for organic species. We also estimate one aqueous reactive chamber for aerosol heterogeneous reactions and individual particle hygroscopic growth instrument. We specifically focus on individual particle analysis, black carbon (soot) measurement and modelling, aqueous chemical reactions, and sources of PM2.5.

    Atmospheric radiation

This research area focuses on light scattering by non-spherical and inhomogenous particles with applications in atmospheric radiative transfer, remote sensing, numerical weather forecast, and climate sciences. Specific research topics include: 1) develop advanced computational techniques to solve electromagnetic wave scattering by non-spherical and inhomogeneous particles; 2) develop simplified and effective atmospheric aerosols model including dust, sea salt, and soot aerosols; 3) reduce uncertainties associated with the remote sensing of clouds and aerosols; 4) improve current understanding the radiative effects of clouds and aerosol in global circulation models.