Academic Archive

Before moving into software engineering I spent six years as a climate scientist at the University of Virginia, advised by Prof. Kevin Grise, funded by a NASA FINESST fellowship. This page archives that work.

You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile and ORCID.

Publications

Research Summaries

Vertically Varying Cloud Responses to Southern Hemisphere Jet Shifts and Their Role in Southern Annular Mode Persistence How clouds and their radiative effects respond to meridional shifts in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude jet, using reanalysis data, CloudSat/CALIPSO observations, and CMIP6 models. Models that simulate low cloud responses more realistically show less SAM persistence, suggesting cloud radiative heating anomalies contribute to reducing it.

Implications of Warm Pool Bias in CMIP6 Models on the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Subtropical Jet and Precipitation Most individual CMIP6 models do not simulate a realistic Indo-Pacific Warm Pool size. This work relates that bias to the subtropical jet and precipitation distribution through extratropical Rossby wave trains and tropical circulation pathways, and develops emergent constraints to observationally constrain future projections.

Regional Characteristics of Variability in the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Polar Front and Subtropical Jets Using ERA-Interim reanalysis and CMIP6 models to examine month-to-month and interannual variability of the wintertime Northern Hemisphere subtropical and polar front jets, extending previous zonal-mean studies to regional characteristics and ENSO teleconnections.

Mapping Diurnal Aerosol Properties in East Asia from the Deep Space Climate Observatory First mapping of hourly aerosol optical depth over East Asia from DSCOVR observations, validated against AERONET ground observations and compared with bottom-up emissions inventories.

Radiative Forcing and Precipitation Effect of Changing Ozone Separating tropospheric and stratospheric ozone perturbations to quantify their differing contributions to radiative forcing, and examining the resulting fast and slow global-mean precipitation responses.

Teaching

• Aug 2019 – May 2022: Teaching Assistant, University of Virginia
  • Lecture teaching assistant: EVSC 3300 Atmosphere and Weather
  • Instructor of record: EVSC 3301 Atmosphere and Weather Lab
• Jan 2021: Teaching Assistant, University of Virginia
  • J-term course — Pandemics Beyond the Headlines: COVID-19

Selected Conference Presentations

• Liu, X., & Grise, K. M. Vertically Varying Cloud Responses to Southern Hemisphere Jet Shifts and Their Role in Southern Annular Mode Persistence in Observations and CMIP6 Models. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2024, Dec 2024, Washington, DC (poster)
• Grise, K. M., & Liu, X. Present-Day Model Stationary Wave Biases Impact 21st Century Seasonal Precipitation Projections for the Southwestern United States. American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting 2024, Jan 2024, Baltimore, MD (oral)
• Liu, X., & Grise, K. M. Implications of Warm Pool Bias in CMIP6 Models on the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Subtropical Jet and Precipitation. DynVar/SNAP Workshop, Oct 2023, Munich, Germany (oral)
• Liu, X., & Grise, K. M. Emergent Constraint on Future Changes of the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Subtropical Jet. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2022, Dec 2022, Chicago, IL (poster)
• Liu, X., Grise, K. M., Schmidt, D. F., & Davis, R. E. Regional Characteristics of Variability in the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Polar Front Jet and Subtropical Jet in Observations and CMIP6 Models. 23rd Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, Jun 2022, Breckenridge, CO (poster)
• Liu, X., Grise, K. M., Schmidt, D. F., & Davis, R. E. Regional Characteristics of Variability in the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Polar Front Jet and Subtropical Jet in Observations and CMIP6 Models. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2021, Dec 2021, New Orleans, LA (eLightning talk)
• Liu, X., & Grise, K. M. Understanding the Processes That Control the Interannual Variability of the Northern Hemisphere Wintertime Polar Front and Subtropical Jet Streams. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2020, Dec 2020, virtual (poster)
• Liu, X., & Zeng, Z.-C. Mapping Diurnal Aerosol Properties in East Asia from Deep Space Climate Observatory. IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Aug 2019, Yokohama, Japan (oral)

Awards

• Best Student Poster Presentation Award, 2nd place — American Meteorological Society, 2024
• NASA FINESST Fellowship, 2022–2025 ($100,000; 15.7% selection rate)
• Jay Zieman Research Publication Award — University of Virginia, 2022
• Outstanding Undergraduate Exchange Scholarship — China Scholarship Council, 2017–2018

Education

• Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences (Atmospheric Sciences track), University of Virginia, 2025
• Visiting Student in Meteorology, University of Reading, 2017–2018
• B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, 2019