Research highlight
Starting in July 2023, I will join the faculty at UChicago.
Assistant Professor
University of California, Davis
Faculty Scientist
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
My research interests are in the physics of rainstorms and atmospheric circulations in a changing climate. I am particularly interested in what environmental factors control the temporal and spatial scales of rainstorms, how will the characteristic scales of rainstorms change in a warmer climate, and how the collective effects of individual rainstorms, in turn, shape Earth's climate.
News
July 2021: Prof. Da Yang has received an NSF CAREER Award.
June 2021: Prof. Da Yang leads a C3.ai project on using machine-learning methods to improve the forecast of the MJO.
Feb. 2021: Our new paper "A Shallow Water Model for Convective Self-Aggregation" was published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.
July 2020: Our new paper "Amplified Madden-Julian Oscillation Impacts in Pacific-North America Region" was published in Nature Climate Change.
May 2020: Our new paper published in Science Advances was highlighted by the Office of Science, Department of Energy on May 12.
"A study from UC Davis found that in the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect — the lightness of water vapor."
May 2020: Our new paper "The Lightness of Water Vapor Helps to Stabilize Tropical Climate" was published in Science Advances. This paper proposes that an overlooked effect of water vapor has significant impacts on Earth's energy balance. If you like simple models, check out our companion paper "The Incredible Lightness of Water Vapor" published in Journal of Climate.
Press release: University News, Phys.org, ScienceDaily, The Week
Apr. 2020: Our new paper "Four Theories of the Madden-Julian Oscillation" was published in Review of Geophysics. This paper summarizes and compares four leading MJO theories.
Mar. 2020: I am organizing the Atmospheric Science Webinar Series at UC Davis. Schedule is available here.
Oct. 2019: I received a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship. Please see the press releases at the Packard Foundation, UC Davis, LBNL, and Twitter.
Nov. 2019: Our new paper "Size of the Atmospheric Blocking Events: Scaling Law and Response to Climate Change" was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Oct. 2019: Our new paper "Enhanced Equatorial Warming Causes Deep-Tropical Contraction and Subtropical Monsoon Shift" was published in Nature Climate Change.
Aug. 2019: Our new paper "Convective Heating Leads to Self-Aggregation by Generating Available Potential Energy" was published in Geophysical Research Letters. See research page for a plain-language summary.