UNIST Lecturer Ra Professor Receives 'Mid-Career Atmospheric Scientist Award'

UNIST Lecturer Ra Professor.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Professor Kang Sa-ra of the Department of Urban Environmental Engineering at UNIST became the first Korean scientist to receive the 'Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award' on the 12th.

The award ceremony is being held at the '2022 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting' taking place in Chicago, USA, from the 12th to the 16th.

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) annually selects atmospheric scientists who have shown outstanding achievements between 8 and 20 years after obtaining their PhD, awarding about four atmospheric scientists each year.

In this award, Professor Kang Sa-ra was recognized for changing the existing perspective on high-latitude?tropical teleconnections.

Until the early 2000s, climate change in high-latitude regions such as Antarctica or the Arctic and low-latitude tropical regions near the equator had been studied separately, but Professor Kang presented a new perspective in climate dynamics by identifying the teleconnection effects from high-latitude regions to tropical regions.

In recent research, international collaboration was established to build model experiment data to understand the role of ocean circulation in teleconnections.

Professor Shang-Ping Xie of UCSD, who recommended the award, said, “Professor Kang Sa-ra proposed a new theory on teleconnections linking climate changes between high and low latitudes and further clarified the role of ocean circulation in these teleconnections. These studies have greatly contributed to understanding climate change caused by aerosols and carbon dioxide.”

Professor Kang said, “I am deeply grateful to everyone who made this award possible,” and added, “I will devote myself even more to research.”

Professor Kang Sa-ra graduated from Seoul National University and earned her PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University. Since 2011, she has been a professor at UNIST, actively promoting international exchanges in the climate field.

Since 2021, she has been serving as co-chair of the Climate Dynamics Panel (CDP), a specialized committee under the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) that oversees global climate dynamics research.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.