Ka-Kit Tung

About

Ka-Kit Tung is the Frederic and Julia Wan Endowed Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Washington, where he also serves as the Undergraduate Program Coordinator and an Adjunct Professor in Atmospheric Science. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1977. Following his doctoral studies, he remained at Harvard as a postdoctoral researcher for two years before joining MIT, where he held positions as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics. Professor Tung became a faculty member at the University of Washington in 1988, serving as Department Chair from 1993 to 2007. His research interests include atmospheric sciences, climate modeling, geophysics, and mathematical epidemiology. He has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the Royal Meteorological Society, and served as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences from 2006 to 2013. Professor Tung's work focuses on climate change, and he has contributed to the understanding of global warming and atmospheric phenomena.

Research topics

• Engineering
• Geology
• Climatology
• Sociology
• Geography
• Oceanography
• Demography
• Medicine
• Meteorology
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Global surface warming enhanced by weak Atlantic overturning circulation

  Nature · 2018-07-01 · 187 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The global warming hiatus: Slowdown or redistribution?

  Earth s Future · 2016-11-01 · 185 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Abstract Global mean surface temperatures ( GMST ) exhibited a smaller rate of warming during 1998–2013, compared to the warming in the latter half of the 20th Century. Although, not a “true” hiatus in the strict definition of the word, this has been termed the “global warming hiatus” by IPCC (2013). There have been other periods that have also been defined as the “hiatus” depending on the analysis. There are a number of uncertainties and knowledge gaps regarding the “hiatus.” This report review…

  PublisherDOI

• Global-mean surface temperature variability: space–time perspective from rotated EOFs

  Climate Dynamics · 2017-10-28 · 74 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The observed global-mean surface temperature (GST) has been warming in the presence of increasing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, but its rise has not been monotonic. Attention has increasingly been focused on the prominent variations about the linear trend in GST, especially on interdecadal and multidecadal time scales. When the sea-surface temperature (SST) and the land- plus-ocean surface temperature (ST) are averaged globally to yield the global-mean SST (GSST) and the GST, re…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pairwise-Rotated EOFs of Global SST

  Journal of Climate · 2017-04-12 · 36 citations

  articleSenior author

  Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of global sea surface temperature yields modes in which interannual variability associated with ENSO and the lower-frequency variability associated with the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) are confounded with one another and with the signature of global warming. The confounded EOFs exhibit overlapping centers of action with polarities of the perturbations juxtaposed such that the respective modes are m…

  PublisherDOI

• ENSO diversity and the recent appearance of Central Pacific ENSO

  Climate Dynamics · 2019-10-10 · 33 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Studies of Multi-decadal Variability in Climate Records

  NSF · $591k · 2013–2017

• Analyses of Global Climate Variability in Data and In Models

  NSF · $554k · 2008–2012

• Collaborative Research: CMG: Anisotropic Atmospheric Dynamics Across a Wide Range of Scales

  NSF · $656k · 2003–2008

Frequent coauthors

• Yuk L. Yung

  California Institute of Technology

  75 shared

• Mao‐Chang Liang

  Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica

  72 shared

• Li‐Ching Lin

  National United University

  67 shared

• Shan Sun

  NOAA Global Systems Laboratory

  66 shared

• Xianyao Chen

  Ocean University of China

  51 shared

• King‐Fai Li

  University of California, Riverside

  41 shared

• Li Yi

  Northwest A&F University

  27 shared

• Hu Yang

  18 shared

Education

• B.S., Aeronautical Engineering

  California Institute of Technology

  1972

• M.S., Aeronautical Engineering

  California Institute of Technology

  1972

• Ph.D., Applied Mathematics

  Harvard University

  1977

Awards & honors

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1985)
• Fellow of the American Meteorological Society
• Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• Christopher S. Brethertonh-101
• Peter J. Schmidh-55
• Dale Durranh-53