Qinghua Ding
University of California-Santa Barbara, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
The Arctic is changing fast. Summer sea ice is shrinking, and Greenland has seen some of the strongest summer warming and moistening anywhere in the Arctic since at least 1979.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
- Topics
Arctic sea ice
sea ice prediction
seasonal forecasting
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Develop regional models of summertime Arctic sea ice that combine global observational data through machine learning, to forecast ice from weeks to a season ahead and find how far ahead prediction is possible.
- Run reforecast experiments to isolate and quantify how pre-summer local sea ice conditions and remote climate drivers each influence summer Arctic sea ice.
- Identify which human-caused and natural forcings most strongly control Greenland's summer circulation, temperature and moisture on year-to-decade timescales, using historical atmospheric data and CESM experiments.
- Determine how large-scale circulation regulates moisture over Greenland from weather to seasonal timescales, and test how well CESM2 and CMIP6 models reproduce observed circulation changes.
More about the research
These changes affect shipping, local communities, ice sheet melt and global sea level. Yet the causes and their predictability remain unclear, because local weather, ocean conditions and distant shifts in global wind patterns interact in complex ways. This research asks how local and remote climate drivers shape Arctic sea ice and Greenland's atmosphere, and how far ahead they can be predicted. Both projects are collaborations with other institutions.
Why it matters
Better forecasts of summer Arctic sea ice could help communities, economies and planners who depend on Arctic conditions. A clearer understanding of what drives Greenland's warming and moistening could improve how climate models represent ice sheet change. That, in turn, could sharpen projections of global sea-level rise that affect coastal populations worldwide.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lantao Sun
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how much Arctic sea ice loss affects summer atmospheric circulation and the jet stream, and through what mechanisms, using DAMIP and PAMIP climate model simulations.
Gan Zhang
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Earth & Environmental Science
Map the limits of how far ahead high-impact tropical and mid-latitude cyclones can be predicted, using new AI weather forecasting models, and identify the starting conditions that control storm development.
Deepti Singh
Washington State University, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how atmosphere, ocean and land-surface conditions, including El Niño Southern Oscillation and unusual soil moisture, influence the extent, frequency, persistence and amplitude of ridges over western North America, using observations and CMIP6 simulations.
The school
University of California-Santa Barbara: 17 labs on PI Pages, $303M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.