Atmosphere Ocean Science Colloquium

---

Physics and Projections of Extreme Moist Heat and Convection in the Midlatitudes

Speaker: Funing Li, PhD, currently postdoctoral associate at MIT

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 3:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

Heating and convection are fundamental atmospheric processes responsible for a wide range of high-impact weather hazards, including heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. Yet fundamental questions regarding why they form and how they evolve remain challenging, particularly in the midlatitudes, where conventional theories such as the quasi-equilibrium assumption often fail and multifaceted interactions among land, ocean, atmosphere, and human activity add further complexity.

This talk focuses on near-surface moist heat and severe convection, which frequently co-occur across midlatitude land regions due to the stored-energy nature of midlatitude convection. I will present an inversion-constraint theory showing that their maximum intensities are tightly constrained by preexisting low-level thermal inversions, which helps better interpret their projected intensifications as the planet warms. Specifically, I will show that emerging future hotspots of moist heat and convection extremes over northeastern Asia and eastern North America arise from amplified warming over upstream highlands, which strengthens downstream inversions. Targeted model experiments confirm the critical role of orographically elevated heating in driving these moist weather extremes. Our results reveal a mechanistic pathway for extreme weather and highlight low-level inversions as a key factor shaping compound moist heat and convective weather risks.