land-atmosphere interactions play a central role in the functioning of the Earth's climate. The goal of this course is to understand the land-atmosphere interactions in (cloud) forests. Topics covered include:

understanding the energy and water flux in Chi-Lan, Xi-Tou, Pan-Alishan regions
exploring how the fog modulates the surface atmospheric conditions
exploring how large scale climates modulate tropical forests’ energy, water, carbon cycles


Students will read several critical papers in the aforementioned topics, and will also learn to design, perform, and analyze the numerical model and combined with intensive field-observations.

This is a project-based course. Students will propose the hypotheses, integrating land processes, climatology, and ecology, and use the in-situ data to test proposed ideas in the project and also using observational datasets (in-situ observational stations and remote sensing datasets, reanalysis datasets) to identify some critical mechanisms.

We may have two trips: IOP in Chi-Lan (3 days) and final presentation in Xi-Tou (3 days) with some expenses needed. Everyone will see the flux tower and weather stations, experience the fog in cloud-forest, and understand how they measure the water and carbon fluxes between land-atmosphere interaction via flux instruments.