Sarah Kang

In the Earth’s climate system, what happens locally often has global consequences. A regional disturbance—such as aerosol pollution over Europe or tropical deforestation—can trigger far-reaching effects through atmospheric and oceanic circulation. How do aerosols influence tropical rainfall? How does rising CO₂ reshape circulation patterns across space and time? What unintended consequences might geoengineering bring? And how do land–atmosphere interactions modulate climate change? These are the central questions that drive research in Climate Dynamics Department.

Answering them requires a systems-level perspective on Earth’s tightly interconnected climate. Local perturbations—whether from greenhouse gases, aerosols, stratospheric ozone depletion, or land surface changes—can induce global-scale responses through feedbacks involving atmospheric and ocean circulation, cloud–radiation interactions, and land–surface processes. Our work spans all major components of the Earth system to uncover the mechanisms that govern global climate responses and the evolution of large-scale patterns under external forcing.

To tackle these challenges, we employ a hierarchy of climate models—from idealized aquaplanet frameworks to state-of-the-art, storm-resolving coupled simulations. By integrating physical theory with computational experimentation, we aim to advance fundamental understanding of climate dynamics and address some of the most pressing questions in Earth system science.