Xia Sun :: North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies

Xia Sun

Biography

Xia Sun joined NCICS in August 2022 as a climate data analyst with the National Climate Assessment Technical Support Unit. After earning her bachelor’s degree from Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, also known as Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Xia attended North Carolina State University, where she continued her research in Atmospheric Science with enthusiasm. During her master’s study, Xia focused on coupling the atmospheric Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with a modified oceanic POM model and adapting the completed version to carry out regional weather and climate research over Lake Victoria Basin, East Africa. Since then, Xia has participated in the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) programs aiming to enhance the understanding of East African climate variability and change. In 2021, Xia completed her PhD study in Atmospheric Science, with a minor in Statistics. Her doctoral research has revolved around increasing preseason hurricane forecast accuracy. She developed and improved a probabilistic model to better predict the Atlantic hurricane season with optimization through machine learning techniques. Since 2017, the developed model has been used for hurricane forecasting, with Xia participating in the release of the hurricane season outlooks around mid-April every year. Additionally, her projects involved numerical modeling simulations of tropical cyclones,long-term climate predictions for different areas, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis and visualization. At this point, Xia is more broadly interested in hurricane forecasting, climate change, numerical modeling, and data analysis.

Publications

2022

Anyah, R., Xia, S., Semazzi, F. Influence of water table dynamics on spatial and temporal patterns of hydroclimate extremes over Lake Victoria Basin, East Africa: Comparison of wet and dry years. International Journal of Climatology, 2022, 1– 21. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7682.

Sun, X. and L. Xie, 2022: A Climatological Study of Successive Tropical Cyclone Events in North Atlantic. Atmosphere, 13 (11), 1909. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos13111909

Sun, X. and L. Xie, 2022: A Comparative Study on the Performances of Spectral Nudging and Scale-Selective Data Assimilation Techniques for Hurricane Track and Intensity Simulations. Climate, 10 (11), 168. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli10110168

2021

Sun, X., Xie, L., Shah, S.U., Shen, X. A Machine Learning Based Ensemble Forecasting Optimization Algorithm for Preseason Prediction of Atlantic Hurricane Activity. Atmosphere, 2021, 12, 522. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12040522.

Asthana, T., Krim, H., Sun, X., Roheda, S., Xie, L. Atlantic Hurricane Activity Prediction: A Machine Learning Approach. Atmosphere, 2021, 12, 455. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12040455.

2015

Sun, X., Xie, L., Semazzi, F., Liu, B. Effect of Lake Surface Temperature on the Spatial Distribution and Intensity of the Precipitation over the Lake Victoria Basin, Monthly Weather Review, 2015, 143(4), 1179-1192. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-14-00049.1.

R. Argent, X. Sun, F. Semazzi, L. Xie, B. Liu. The Development of a Customization Framework for the WRF Model over the Lake Victoria Basin, Eastern Africa on Seasonal Timescales, Advances in Meteorology, Vol. 2015, 653473. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/653473

Semazzi, F., B. Liu, L. Xie, K. Smith, M. Angus, M. Gudoshava, R. Argent, X. Sun, S. Liess, and A. Bhattacharya. Decadal Variability of the Eastern Africa Monsoon. CLIVAR Exchanges Special Issue on Monsoons: Advancing understanding of monsoon variability and improving pre-diction, 2015, Vol. 19, 15-19.

2014

Sun, X., L. Xie, F. Semazzi, and B. Liu. A Numerical Investigation of the Precipitation over Lake Victoria Basin Using a Coupled Atmosphere-Lake Limited-Area Model. Advances in Meteorology, Vol. 2014, 897246, https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/960924.