Dr. Kaicun Wang

 
Education

Ph.D.   Atmospheric Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China, 2004
M.Sc.   Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, 2001
B.Sc.   Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, 1998

Research Interests

• Global aerosol climatology over land
• Global Terrestrial Evapotranspiration
• Evapotranspiration, land cover change and global climate change
• Estimation of surface net radiation
• Satellite land surface characteristics climatology

The primary research interests of Kaicun Wang are to understand long-term change of air pollution (atmospheric aerosols) and land cover changes caused by human activities, and their influences on global water cycle and climate change. One of his papers on global aerosols climatology has been published on Science, which has been reported by more than 400 media. Dr. Wang use satellite and ground-based measurements to estimate land surface characteristics, surface radiation net radiation components and land-air water and carbon exchange. He developed several methods to estimate terrestrial evaporation from satellite data and conventional meteorological observations. He also developed a method to estimate broadband emissivity from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) narrowband retrievals.
    

      Before joining the department of Geography at the University of Maryland in July   2006, Dr. Wang held an assistant researcher position at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2004-2006), and was a visiting scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland

Representative Papers

1. Wang, K., R. E. Dickinson, and S. Liang (2009). Clear Sky Visibility has Decreased over Land Globally from 1973 to 2007. Science, 323, 1468-1470.
2. Wang, K., and S. Liang (2009). Evaluation of ASTER and MODIS collection 5 land surface temperature and emissivity products with surface longwave radiation observations at SURFRAD sites. Remote Sensing of Environment, in press.
3. Wang, K., and S. Liang (2009). Estimation of surface net radiation from solar radiation measurements. Journal of applied Meteorology and Climatology, 48, 634-643.
4. Wang, K., and S. Liang (2008). An improved method for estimating global evapotranspiration based on satellite determination of surface net radiation, vegetation index, temperature, and soil moisture. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 9(4), 712-717.
5. Wang, K, R. E. Dickinson, and S. Liang (2008). Observational evidence on the effects of clouds and aerosols on net ecosystem exchange and evapotranspiration. Geophysical Research Letter, 35, L10401, doi:10.1029/2008GL034167.
6. Liang, S. T. Zheng,  D. Wang, K. Wang, R. Liu,  S. C. Tsay, S. Running, and J. Townshend (2007).  Mapping high-resolution incident photosynthetically active radiation over land from polar-orbiting and geostationary satellite data. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 73, 1085-1089.
7. Zheng, T., S. Liang, and K. Wang (2008). Estimation of incident photosynthetically active radiation from GOES visible imagery. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 47, 853-868.
8. Wang, K., P. Wang, Z. Li, M. Sparrow, and M. Cribb (2007). A simple method to estimate evapotranspiration from a combination of net radiation, vegetation indices and temperatures. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D15107, DOI: 10.1029/2006JD008351.
9. Wang, K., J. Wang, P. Wang, M. Sparrow, H. Chen, et al. (2007). Influences of Urbanization on Surface Characteristics from MODIS: A Case Study for Beijing Metropolitan. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D22S06, Doi:10.1029/2006JD007997.
10. Wang, K., Z. Wan, P. Wang, J. Liu, and M. Sparrow (2007). Evaluation and Improvement of the MODIS Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity Products Using Ground-based Measurements at a Semi-desert Site on the Western Tibetan Plateau. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 28, 2549-2565.
11. Wang, K., Z. Li and M. Cribb (2006). Estimation of Evaporative Fraction from a Combination of Day and Night Land Surface Temperatures and NDVI: A New Method to Determine the Priestly-Taylor Parameter. Remote Sensing of Environment, 102, 293-305.
12. Wang, K., Z. Wan, P. Wang, M. Sparrow, J. Liu, et al.  (2005). Estimation of land surface upwelling long wave radiation and broadband emissivity using MODIS LST products. Journal of Geophysics Research, 110, D11109, doi: 10.1029/2004JD005566.
13. Wang, K., P. Wang, J. Liu, M. Sparrow, S. Haginoya, et al. (2005). Variation of surface albedo and soil thermal parameters with soil moisture content at a semi-desert site on the western Tibetan Plateau. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 116(1), 117-129.
14. Wang, K., X. Zhou, J. Liu and M. Sparrow (2005). Estimating surface solar radiation over complex terrain using moderate-resolution satellite sensor data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 26(1), 47-58.
15. Wang, K., J. Liu, X. Zhou, M. Sparrow, M. Ma, et al. (2004). Validation of the MODIS global land surface albedo product using ground measurements in a semidesert region on the Tibetan Plateau. Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D05107, doi: 10.1029/2003JD004229.