Dan Fu faculty image
  • Assistant Professor
Google Scholar Profile

Research Interests

I am an atmospheric dynamist and numerical modeler working at the interface of weather and climate. My primary research interests focus on how modes of climate variability and climate change can influence the variability and predictability of high-impact extreme weather and climate events. Extreme weather and climate events, such as tropical cyclones, atmospheric rivers, heatwaves, and severe droughts, pose substantial risks to both humans and the environment. My research aims to improve seasonal-to-decadal predictions and future projections of these extreme events by understanding the physical drivers of their variability and changes.

Given the complexity of factors influencing these events and the limited duration of high-quality observations, I employ both ensembles of high-resolution weather (e.g., WRF and MPAS) and climate (e.g., high-resolution Community Earth System Model, CESM-HR; Project website: https://project.cgd.ucar.edu/projects/MESACLIP/index.html, funded by NSF grant AGS-2231237) simulations, as well as machine learning data-driven approaches, to uncover causal relationships.

  • Tropical cyclone dynamics and predictability 
  • Temperature and hydrological weather extremes in changing environment
  • High-resolution global and regional Earth system modeling
  • Seasonal-to-decadal predictions
  • Applications of deep learning/AI in atmospheric sciences


Animation from the CESM-HR simulation showing cloud top brightness temperature (white-to-black colormap), precipitation (green-to-red colormap), and tracked mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) outlined in purple. Extreme precipitation events are driven by complex multiscale atmospheric dynamic interactions, fueled by available moisture. CESM-HR with a 10-to-25-km resolution markedly improves the representation of MCSs compared to its 100-km resolution counterparts.

Educational Background

  • Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2018
  • B.S., Ocean University of China, 2013

Selected Publications

  • Fu, D., X. Liu, F. Castruccio, G. Zhang, P. Chang, and G. Danabasuglu, 2025: Global Warming Amplifies Inland Compound Risks from Tropical Cyclones, under review, Nature Climate Change. Preprint available at https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7369582/v1.

    Chang, P., D. Fu*, X. Liu, F. S. Castruccio, A. F. Prein, G. Danabasoglu, X. Wang, J. Bacmeister, N. Rosenbloom, T. King, and S. C. Bates, 2025: Future Extreme Precipitation Amplified by Intensified Mesoscale Moisture Convergence, Nature Geoscience, 1-9. doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01859-1. (This work is highlighted by AAAS Science News: https://www.science.org/content/article/high-resolution-climate-model-forecasts-wet-turbulent-future)

    Fu, D., and P. Chang, 2025: Mesoscale Moisture Convergence Drives Stronger Future Rainfall Extremes, Nature Geoscience. doi:10.1038/s41561-025-01869-z. (This is an invited Research Briefing that highlights the above article)

    Fu, D., P. Chang, and X. Liu, 2023: Using convolutional neural network to emulate seasonal tropical cyclone activity. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15, e2022MS003596. doi: 10.1029/2022MS003596.

    Fu, D., P. Chang, C. M. Patricola, R. Saravanan, X. Liu and H. Beck, 2021: Central American mountains inhibit seasonal eastern North Pacific tropical cyclone activity, Nature Communications, 12, 4422. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24657-w.

    Fu, D., J. Small, J. Kurian, Y. Liu, B. Kauffman, A. Gopal, S. Ramachandran, Z. Shang, P. Chang, G. Danabasoglu, K, Thayer-Calder, M. Vertenstein, X. Ma, H. Yao, M. Li, Z. Xu, X. Lin, S. Zhang and L. Wu, 2021: Introducing the new Regional Community Earth System Model, R-CESM, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 102(9), E1821–E1843. doi: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0024.1.

    See ORCiD for a full list of publications: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0001-6423-6117 

Editorship

  • Editorial Board (11/2024 onwards): IOP Machine Learning: Earth
  • Associate Editor (10/2025 onwards): Journal of Climate
  • Editorial Board (12/2025 onwards): Nature Communications Earth & Environment
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