Dr. Chungu (Dan) Lu
Research Scientist III, Meteorologist
Office: D.Skaggs Resch. Cntr., Rm 2B604
Phone: (303) 497-6776
Fax: (303) 497-7262
Email:
Mailing Address:
Dr. Chungu (Dan) Lu
Global Systems Division/Forecast Applications Branch
325 Broadway
Boulder, CO  80305-3328
Biography

Chungu Lu received his B.S. (1982) in Physics from Jilin University, China, M.S. (1988) in Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography from Oregon State University, and Ph.D. (1993) in Atmospheric Sciences from Colorado State University. After one year postdoctoral research, he joined NOAA Forecast Systems Research Laboratory as a meteorologist and also affiliated with CIRA as a visiting scientist. He is now a scientist working in NOAA Erath System Research Laboratory and CIRA, Colorado State University. Dr. Lu’s research area is in Numerical Weather Prediction, atmospheric modeling, atmospheric dynamics, hydrometeorology, and global climate and environment. He has published more than 30 journal and more than 50 conference papers. One of his major works is the study of wave-turbulence interaction. This work has practical implications to severe weather, aviation weather, oceanography, and aerospace weather. Other important research he has conducted are data assimilation, ensemble forecasting, and quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) and quantitative precipitation estimate (QPE). These work have been of benefit to NOAA’s water, weather, and climate goals. Besides working with NOAA projects, he has been also involved in the work funded by NSF, NASA, DoD, FAA, and collaborative work with Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Meteorological Administration, Korean Research Foundation, and Korean Pukyong National University. 

Recent Work
Figure

Above: Data from NOAA Gulfstream-IV aircraft observation conducted over the north-central Pacific during the Severe Clear Air Turbulence Colliding with Aircraft (SCATCAT) field project on 17-18 February 2001. The field experiment was a part of the 2001 joint NOAA, NASA, NCAR, and FAA Winter Storms Reconnaissance Program to test the performance of RUC model predictors of turbulence and to improve understanding of turbulence generation mechanisms. (a) Time-frequency display of wavelet analysis of aircraft vertical acceleration data at 10.1, 10.7, and 11.4 km flight altitudes (cm s-2). (b) Phase of gravity waves (degree) at which maximum turbulence intensity occurred for turbulence > 0.5 cm2 s-4, (c) gravity waves reconstructed from wavelet analysis in the 0.07 frequency band, and (d) turbulence intensity (cm2 s-4) reconstructed from wavelet analysis in the 0.65 Hz frequency band. Background noise level of wavelet amplitudes is depicted by blue, with increasing intensity shown by yellow and red shading. Black segments indicate times when the aircraft was going through maneuvers (primarily changes in altitude) that invalidated the measurements.

Selected Publications

Lu, C., and J. Boyd, 2008: Rossby wave ray-tracing in a divergent barotropic atmosphere. J. Atmos. Sci., 65, 1679-1691.

 Lu, C., and S. Koch, 2008: Spectral and structure function analyses of gravity waves and turbulence in the upper troposphere. J. Atmos. Sci., in press.
 
 Lu, C., H. Yuan,, B. Schwartz, and S. Benjamin, 2007: Short-range forecast using time-lagged ensembles.          Wea. Forecasting, 22, 580-595.
 
Lu, C., S. Koch, and N. Wang, 2005: Determination of temporal and spatial characteristics of gravity waves using cross-spectral analysis and wavelet transformation. J. Geophys. Res., 110, D01109, doi:10.1029/2004JD004906.
 
Lu, C., S. Koch, and N. Wang, 2005: Stokes parameter analysis of a packet of turbulence-generating                                                                                                                              gravity waves. J. Geophys. Res., 110, D20105, doi:10.1029/2004JD005736.
 
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