Welcome to Dr. Zong-Liang Yang's Land Environment and Atmospheric Dynamics Group at UT-Austin. The LEAD group consists of graduate research assistants, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists and visiting scholars.  We view the earth system in a holistic way, linking the atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, cryosphere, and solid earth. We use powerful methodologies such as satellite remote sensing and supercomputing simulations which are now profoundly changing research in the earth sciences. We place a strong emphasis on the societal impact of the research in the earth sciences. See Dr. Yang's talk entitled "Why IS Land at the Central Stage for Weather and Climate?"  Specifically, we are working to answer a wide variety of research and science questions below.

• How does land shape climate, or vice versa, on all time and space scales?

• What has been the impact of human activity on the Earth?

• What is the future of our environment under climate change, land use change and water use change?

• How good are climate models in simulating biosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere interactions?

• What are their uncertainties? How can we improve them?

• Are current satellite datasets alone sufficient for monitoring our environmental conditions?

Seasonal Precipitation Prediction Project	Coastal Zone Interdisciplinary Science Project	Climate Change/Air Quality Project