Dr. Xiaohong Liu is a professor at the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Wyoming (UW). He is the Endowed “Wyoming Excellence Chair” in Climate Science.
Dr. Liu is an internationally well-known scientist in the fields of aerosol modeling, and aerosol-cloud interactions and impact on the climate system. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of aerosol effects on clouds, especially on cold cirrus and mixed-phase clouds. In addition, he has been involved in the development of climate models, and is a key member of the development team of the NCAR’s Community Atmosphere Model versions 5 and 6 (CAM5 and CAM6), the atmospheric component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). He has developed aerosol modules to study the microphysics and life cycle of aerosols in the atmosphere. He has developed ice nucleation parameterizations and implemented them in climate models to investigate aerosol effects on cirrus and mixed-phase clouds. Using global and regional models he investigated effects of aerosols (e.g., mineral dust, wildfire aerosols, pollution aerosols) on clouds and the hydrological cycles over North Africa, southern Africa, Western US, and East Asia. He has published ~160 peer-reviewed papers (as of November 2017) and was named to the Thomas Reuters' list as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. He is currently the co-Chair of NCAR CESM Chemistry-Climate Working Group, and an editor of journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.