Jian Lu, a climate dynamics researcher previously working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, and GFDL/NOAA, Princeton, NJ. He joined the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences Department as an Assistant Professor in January, 2009. Dr. Lu has a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from Ocean University of China in 1999 and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Dalhousie University (Canada) in 2003. He received the Tercia Hughes Memorial Prize, which the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society awards to one Canadian Ph.D. per year, for his contribution to understanding the role of the tropical forcing for
the multidecadal trend in the Euro-Atlantic atmospheric circulation. Dr. Lu is interested in the fundamental dynamics of atmospheric and oceanic circulations and their variations. His recent work includes studies of how the Hadley Cell may expand under global warming. The Hadley Cell is an important structure in the atmospheric circulation, connecting rainy zones near the equator with deserts in the subtropics. Analyzing comprehensive numerical models of the climate, Dr. Lu and collaborators first discovered and explained mechanistically that global warming is going to reduce rainfall in many regions at the edge of deserts. In ongoing work, Dr. Lu is trying to better understand the 35 global pattern of the circulation response in both ocean and atmosphere, and the consequence the global warming on the extremes of precipitation.