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Memorial Tributes Volume 25 (2023) / Chapter Skim
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KUO-NAN LIOU
Pages 304-313

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From page 305...
... After postdoctoral research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in 1975 he became a professor at the University of Utah, where he taught for 22 years before going to work at UCLA. He made seminal contributions to atmospheric science and education/mentoring, with a focus on atmospheric radiation, light scatter­ing, remote sensing, and cloud/aerosol radiative f­ orcing effects on the climate system.
From page 306...
... , coherently integrates radiative transfer and cloud physics and bridges the gap between radiation and climate processes in clouds. The volume contributed to the development of climate models for the investigation of global climate change and remote sensing techniques for the inference of cloud and aerosol properties.
From page 307...
... , for light scattering by large particles.5 The IGOM substantially overcame the shortcomings of the conventional geometric optics method for light scattering; in particular, it could for the first time depict the variation in extinction efficiency with particle size within the geometric optics framework, and it overcame the inherent singularity, called the delta transmission, associated with the ray-tracing technique for a particle with parallel surface facets. The IGOM and its subsequent developments in synergistic combination with other methods for small-to-moderate particles provide advanced modeling capabilities for cirrus cloud optical property computations for downstream applications, as summarized in his coauthored text Light Scattering by Ice Crystals (Oxford University Press, 2016)
From page 308...
... atmospheres as a branch of mathematical physics and developed numerous solution methods. Liou followed the discrete-ordinates method developed by Chandrasekhar and in 1974 derived the first analytic solution for the four-stream approximation for radiative transfer.6 On the basis of the delta-four-stream approach, he and a former student constructed the Fu-Liou radiative transfer model, which includes the correlated k-distribution method for the sorting of nongray gaseous absorption in scattering atmospheres and the scattering and absorption properties of hexagonal ice particles.7 The Fu-Liou code has been adopted as a standard broadband radiative transfer model to study climate forcing effects of clouds and aerosols, and used by NASA for the retrieval of satellite-observed atmospheric and surface radiative energy fluxes.
From page 309...
... Liou's discovery linking cloud particle size and precipitation in climate change is now referred to as the second indirect climate forcing in aerosol-cloud feedbacks. Over five decades Liou and his associates conducted numerical simulations involving the effects on precipitation of the increase of anthropogenic aerosols in China, using the UCLA atmospheric general circulation model.11 They showed that increased aerosol optical depths in China led to a noticeable increase in precipitation in the southern part of the country in July due to the cooling in midlatitudes, producing 8  Liou K-N, Gu Y, Leung LR, Lee WL, Fovell RG.
From page 310...
... In addition to his accomplishments in radiative transfer, remote sensing, and climate applications, Liou enhanced understanding of microphysics, radiation, and turbulence interactions in clouds. In particular, he and a former student constructed a 2D model to understand the evolution of cirrus clouds.13 This study represents the first effort to incorporate in a cirrus model all the pertinent physical processes involving ice crystal formation, radiative transfer in clouds, and secondorder turbulence closure.
From page 311...
... The 2002 edition includes about 70 percent new material and is still frequently used by researchers in the areas of radiative transfer, light scattering, and remote sensing. An important part of Liou's legacy is reflected by the number and quality of the graduate students he trained -- he guided the completion of 33 doctoral dissertations and many master's theses.
From page 312...
... He was generous and supportive of others, and wrote numerous letters in support of colleagues' promotions and nominations for awards or recognitions. He liked to encourage early-career researchers by reciting an ancient Chinese poem: "The setting sun leans on the furthest mountains to disappear, the Yellow River flows into the sea.


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