- Hans W. Chen
- Doctoral Graduate Student
- Department of Meteorology
- The Pennsylvania State University
- Office: 626 Walker Building
- Email: hans.chen@psu.edu
About
Introduction
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State, working with my advisor Fuqing Zhang. My research interests include atmospheric dynamics, climate variability on interannual to decadal time scales, and how the large scale atmospheric circulation interacts with regional climate. At the moment my research focuses on improving our understanding of the climate dynamics over the pan-Arctic region.
Education
| 2013–present | Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States. |
| 2010–2012 | M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography and Climate, Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. |
| 2007–2010 | B.S. in Meteorology, Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. |
More information can be found in my CV.
Research
Research interests
The focus of my research is to improve our understanding of how the atmospheric circulation affects the regional weather and climate in the mid-latitudes and polar regions. I approach the problems using a combination of observational data, numerical models, and statistical methods. The research topics I am interested in include:
- Climate variability on the regional scale
- General circulation of the atmosphere and teleconnection patterns
- Interaction between large-scale circulation and regional climate
- Data assimilation as a tool for understanding climate variability
Recent research projects
Using the Köppen classification to quantify climate variation and change
When trying to quantify the impact of climate variation and climate change, it is common to use a single scalar variable such as surface temperature. However, it is not given that a change in e.g. surface temperature will have the same impact everywhere; some ecosystems are relatively stable, while others are more sensitive to changes in the regional climate. This project explores a different approach, using the Köppen climate classification to identify the climatic condition in different regions over various time scales. The Köppen classification system was developed empirically based on the vegetation distribution on Earth and combines surface temperature and precipitation into one single metric. The results of this project suggest that the Köppen classification can be used as a diagnostic tool to examine climate variation and climate change.
Publications
In press
- Chen, H. W., Q. Zhang, H. Körnich, and D. Chen, 2013: A robust mode of climate variability in the Arctic: The Barents Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters.
2013
Resources
Data
Presentations
Slides from my presentations will be available here.
Tools
Various free tools I use in my research.
Atmospheric science
- Climate Data Operators (CDO) - Collection of operators to process and analyze climate data.
General
- Git - Powerful version control system. I keep most of my work in Git repositories.
- Zotero - Reference management software for collecting and organizing bibliographic data.