Dr. Hiro Masunaga

Dr. Masunaga is Associate Professor at the Institute of Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE) of Nagoya University in Nagoya, Japan. After receiving his Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Tokyo in 1999, he pursued his research career as an atmospheric scientist at the University of Tokyo, National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA, currently Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA), and Colorado State University before joining Nagoya University. His research interests are centered on satellite meteorology and climatology with focus on tropical convection and dynamics. He is a 2019 recipient of the Award of the Meteorological Society of Japan.

Research summary

Dr. Masunaga’s research interests include satellite meteorology and climatology, tropical convection and large-scale dynamics, tropical air–sea interactions. In his recent work, he devised a novel methodology to coordinate the observations from different satellites beyond their individual instrument capabilities to explore the dynamics of tropical moist convection. He is currently working to better understand the cloud-radiative interactions in the tropical atmosphere, which are known to be among the key uncertainties in future climate projections.

Keywords

Satellite Remote Sensing, Tropical Climate and Meteorology