Meet I-Kuan Hu

I-Kuan Hu

CIRES post doc I-Kuan Hu joined PSL’s Atmosphere-Ocean Processes team in August 2020. In collaboration with Stefan Tulich, George Kiladis, and Juliana Dias, I-Kuan works on developing new tools for evaluation of the sub-grid and adiabatic physical process parameterizations in the Unified Forecast System (UFS). Specifically, he focuses on building complexity-reduced configurations, with and without parameterized large-scale dynamics, in the Common Community Physics Package Single Column Model. By utilizing these simpler configurations, I-Kuan and his colleagues hope to achieve the following two goals. The first goal is to construct a model framework that offers a computationally cheap and rapid way of testing column physics, and ideally can provide some interpretability of the performances of UFS in realistic configurations. The second goal is to use the UFS hierarchy with a more complete single-column "root" as a theory for advancing our understanding of real-world phenomena, such as convectively coupled equatorial waves, in the conceptual space of process parameterizations.

I-Kuan earned his PhD in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami. His dissertation explores how the behavior of NCAR’s Community Atmosphere Model depends on the use of different parameterization schemes and vertical resolution, with the logistics and goals similar to his current work.

In his spare time, I-Kuan enjoys hanging out with family, watching movies, and feeding his sweet tooth.