The Land-Atmosphere-Ocean Interaction (LAOI) Group is directed by Prof. Xubin Zeng.
Vision: Enhanced understanding and prediction of the Earth system.
Mission: To improve the understanding and modeling of land-atmosphere-ocean interface processes in the Earth system by integrating theoretical analysis and modeling with global ground-based, airborne, and satellite observations; and to act as a bridge linking global observation, parameterization, climate modeling, and weather forecasting communities on interface processes.
Research areas: Atmosphere-ocean-land-ice interface processes; Weather and climate modeling; Hydrometeorology; Remote sensing; Nonlinear dynamics; Big data analytics
Research Experience:
- Over 240 peer-reviewed publications (including invited ones) in the above research areas
- Over 170 invited presentations and hundreds of contributed talks
- Development, analysis, and interpretation of remote sensing and in situ data over land, ocean, and sea-ice
- Development of land model and improvement of land, ocean surface, and atmospheric parameterizations for weather and climate models
- Development of theories to understand the climate system
- Close interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists in hydrology, ecology, geoscience, oceanography, remote sensing, and applied mathematics
- Acting as a bridge linking measurement technology, in situ and satellite data, and modeling communities
Achievement indicators: One of the good indicators of our research achievements is the wide use of our research products in the world, including the implementation of model parameterizations and value-added global datasets in the NCEP and ECMWF operational models for weather forecasting, in the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM), DOE Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM), and NASA GISS model for climate studies, in WRF for regional studies, and in other regional and global models.
Research Highlights in value-added data, model and algorithm, and theoretical developments are provided here
Research Style can be simply summarized by the popular slogans: 
"Think Different" and "Just Do It"
Research Grants from NASA, DOE, NSF, NOAA, US Army Corps of Engineers, California Department of Water Resources, EU, and private sector. Current grants are:
- NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (Deputy PI): Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) (2019-2023)
- DOE E3SM (Institute PI): Lateral Flow Parameterization for the DOE E3SM Land Module (2020-2023)
- NASA (PI): Enhancing the use of NASA products in regional and global energy and water cycle research through GEWEX activities (2021-2024)
- NASA ESTO (Co-I): Quantum Parametric Mode Sorting (QPMS) Lidar (2022-2023)
- DOE SciDAC (Co-PI): Physical, accurate, and efficient atmosphere and surface coupling across scales (2022-2027)
- NASA S2S (PI): Quantifying and understanding the sub seasonal-to-seasonal predictability of land hydrology over the conterminous United States (2022-2025)
- California Department of Water Resources (Co-I): Model Evaluations and Improvements for the DWR Atmospheric River Program (2022-2023)
- NOAA NESDIS (Co-I): Trade Space Exploration of Active and Passive 3D Winds Concepts (2023-2024)
Current and Previous Research Members are provided here
Q&A for Prospective Graduate Students are provided here
Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Center (CDHC)
The evolution of our research areas can also be seen via the Research Showcase Program below:
2022 Spring, 2020 Spring, 2019 Spring, 2018 Spring, 2017 Spring, 2016 Spring, 2015 Spring, 2014 Spring, 2013 Spring, 2012 Spring, 2011 Spring, 2009 Fall, 2009 Spring, 2008 Spring, 2007 Fall, 2007 Spring, 2006 Fall, 2006 Spring, 2005 Fall, 2005 Spring, 2004 Annual, 2003 Annual