Dr. Nancy Y. Kiang

Affiliation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025 USA

E-mail: Nancy.Y.Kiang@nasa.gov
Phone: (212) 678-5587

Publications

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Research Interests:
I study the ways that living things (the biosphere) and the atmosphere interact with each other, focusing on life on land. Through photosynthesis and the evaporation of water from plant leaves, seasonal cycles of growth and decay, and occasional big events like fires, the biosphere on Earth exchanges heat, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen in different forms, and many other compounds with the atmosphere. These exchanges result in the biosphere actively controlling the climate of the Earth. If we understand this better, we can predict weather better, and we can also try to figure out how these exchanges could be different for life on another planet. A lot of my work involves computer modeling— using weather variables like light, temperature, and rain. Using those, we hope to predict how much carbon dioxide an ecosystem will take in from the atmosphere and how much water will be released from the soil back to the atmosphere. I also sometimes do fieldwork, like setting up scientific instruments in a forest to measure the changes of carbon dioxide and water vapor, or to measure the reflectance spectrum of the leaves. The way leaves reflect at different wavelengths of light can distinguish different kind of plants and tell something about the plant's health status and other properties.