Citation
The Atmospheric Sciences section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is pleased to present the 2015 Holton Junior Scientist Award to Dr. Chunsong Lu, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, for “his original contributions in observational and modeling studies of cloud microphysics, turbulent mixing, and convective entrainment.”
Chunsong has demonstrated exceptional purposefulness, creativity, and originality in the challenging and critical problems of convective entrainment, turbulent mixing processes, and their interactions with cloud/fog microphysics. Following from his Ph.D. dissertation, Chunsong has (1) proposed new dynamical and microphysical measures to quantify different mixing mechanisms that likely occur in ambient clouds, (2) developed a new parameterization for mixing mechanisms based on the relationship between the two measures, (3) elucidated the effects of secondary entrainment-mixing events on the new parameterization, (4) proposed an approach for distinguishing and linking entrainment mixing and collision coalescence in clouds, and (5) explored the scale dependence of mixing mechanisms. In the words of one of the supporting letters, Chunsong’s work “opens the door for possible routine monitoring of entrainment profiles using environmental soundings and surface-based microwave radiometer remote sensing of cloud liquid water content.” His research has tremendous implications for improving cumulus parameterization in global climate models, for improving the representation of intrinsic atmospheric convective processes from the diurnal cycle to the Madden-Julian Oscillation.
In his very young scientific career, Chunsong has already published a total of 35 peer-reviewed papers; for 18 of them, he has the prestigious role of first author. He is the principal investigator of many research projects and the recipient of numerous awards, including, among others, an AGU Outstanding Student Paper Award and the Meteorological Science Award for Young Scientists from Peking University, China. In summary, Chunsong’s accomplishments are truly outstanding on several fronts, including academic research and leadership, which epitomize the spirit of the Holton Award.
We are extremely pleased to present the Atmospheric Sciences section Holton Junior Scientist Award to Dr. Chunsong Lu.
—William K. M. Lau, University of Maryland, College Park
Response
It is a great honor to be selected as the 2015 Atmospheric Sciences section Holton Award honoree. The prestigious award named after James Holton is particularly inspiring at this early stage of my career.
I thank the Atmospheric Sciences section of AGU and the members of the award committee for the award. I am truly grateful to my two dissertation advisers; I thank Dr. Shengjie Niu at the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China, for his constant and invaluable guidance and help and Dr. Yangang Liu at Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States, for giving me the freedom and encouragement to explore the research topics of my interest. I am grateful to the two institutions and fortunate to have worked with many outstanding colleagues. I am also grateful to my family and my friends for their unconditional support at home as well as abroad.
I have been focusing on understanding entrainment-mixing processes, turbulence, and their interactions with cloud physics and trying to improve their representation in climate and weather prediction models. I regard the prestigious Holton Award as an encouraging message from the scientific community and will continue to pursue the challenges in atmospheric science.
—Chunsong Lu, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
Citation: AGU (2015), Lu receives the 2015 James R. Holton Junior Scientist Award, Eos, 96, doi:10.1029/2015EO035167. Published on 9 September 2015.
Text © 2015. The authors. CC BY-NC 3.0
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