FERNANDO DE SALES, Ph.D. Atmospheric Scientist 1255 Bunche Hall Box 951524 Los Angeles, CA 90095 E-mail: fsales@ucla.edu Office: (310) 825-6628 CURRENT POSITION Staff Research Associate IV Geography Department University of California, Los Angeles, USA RESEARCH INTERESTS · Dynamic downscaling for regional climate. · Regional climate model development and evaluation · Role of vegetation biophysical processes in the climate system. · Forecast verification methods. EMPLOYMENT HISTORY Staff Research Associate University of California, Los Angeles, CA Department of Geography Oct/2008 to present My current research can be separated in two areas: understanding the added value of regional models dynamic downscaling on seasonal climate simulations; and investigating the interaction processes between the atmosphere and the biosphere. As an example of the first research topic, I have worked as a participant on the Multi-Regional climate model Ensemble Downscaling (MRED) project, which investigates regional circulation models’ ability to improve on North America’s winter simulations produced by global models. The coupling of a new SSiB land surface scheme that includes a dynamic vegetation component into the NCAR Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), which will be used to further our understanding on surface carbon flux and plant competition, is an example of my work on atmosphere-biosphere interaction in my current position. Postdoctoral Scholar University of California, Los Angeles, CA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Sep/2006 to Sep/2008 My research focused on investigating the role of vegetation biophysical processes on the climate through a series of climate model simulations. The main goal was to assess how vegetation-atmosphere interactions can influence several components of the hydrological cycle over different regions of the planet, and thereby affecting the regional climate. Special attention was given to summer monsoon systems over North and South America, as well as West Africa as part of the West African Monsoon Modeling and Evaluation project. Two different climate models were used on these studies, the UCLA AGCM-SSiB and the NCEP GSM-SSiB. In addition, I took a second look at my PhD modeling experiments to try to quantify the added value of dynamic downscaling over South American using the ETA model. Publications: De Sales and Xue (2010), Xue et al. (2010). EDUCATION University of California, Los Angeles, CA Ph.D., Geography, 2006 Advisor: Dr. Yongkang Xue Dissertation: Examining the impacts of dynamic downscaling method and vegetation biophysical processes on the South American regional climate simulation. University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil M.Sc., Atmospheric Sciences, 2000 Advisor: Dr. Augusto Pereira Filho Thesis: Observational Aspects and Numerical Simulations of a Long-lived Symmetric Squall Line in Southeastern Brazil. University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil B.Sc., Atmospheric Sciences, 1998 Advisor: Dr. Maria Assunção Faus da Silva Dias Undergraduate Thesis: On the use of NOAA's TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) to retrieve air temperature and humidity profiles in Brazil. PUBLICATIONS De Sales, F. and Xue, Y. Dynamic downscaling of 22-year CFS winter seasonal forecasts with the UCLA-ETA regional climate model over the United States. Submitted to Climate Dynamics. De Sales, F. and Xue, Y. (2011), Assessing the dynamic-downscaling ability over South America using the intensity-scale verification technique. International Journal of Climatology, 31: 1205–1221. doi: 10.1002/joc.2139. Ma, H. Y., C. R. Mechoso, Y. Xue, H. Xiao, C. M., Wu, J. L. Li, and F. De Sales (2010) Impact of land surface processes on the South American warm season climate. Climate Dynamics. DOI: 10.1007/s00382-010-0813-3 Xue, Y., F. De Sales, et al. (2010) Intercomparison of West African Monsoon and its variability in the West African Monsoon Modeling and Evaluation Project (WAMME) First Experiment. Climate Dynamics. DOI:10.1007/s00382-010-0778-2. Xue, Y., F. De Sales, R. Vasic, C.R. Mechoso, A. Arakawa, and S. Prince (2010) Global and temporal assessment of Interactions between climate and vegetation biophysical process: A GCM study with different land-vegetation representations. Journal of Climate. 23, 1411–1433. Rian S., Y. Xue, G. MacDonald, M. Toure, Y. Yu, F. De Sales, P. Levine, S. Doumbia, C. Taylor (2009) Analysis of Climate and Vegetation Characteristics along the Savanna–Desert Ecotone in Mali Using MODIS Data. GIScience & Remote Sensing. 46, 424-450. De Sales, F. and Y. Xue (2006) Investigation of seasonal prediction of the South American regional climate using the nested model system. Journal of Geophysical Research 111, D20107, doi: 10.1029/2005JD006989. Xue, Y., F. De Sales, W. P. Li, C. R. Mechoso, C. A. Nobre, H.-M. Juang (2006) Role of land surface processes in South American monsoon development. Journal of Climate, 19, 741–762. De Sales, F. and A. Pereira Filho (2005) Study of a Long-Lived Symmetric Squall Line in Southeast Brazil. Brazilian Journal of Meteorology. 20(3), 421-436. Xue, Y., W.-P. Li, F. De Sales, C. R. Mechoso, H.-M. H. Juang, C. Nobre (2004) Land surface processes and monsoon. Proceedings CD-ROM of the 6th International Study Conference of GEWEX in Asia and GAME, December 3-5, 2004, Kyoto, Japan, GAME CD-ROM Publication N. 11, T1YX30Jul04034458. OTHER PUBLICATIONS Waliser, D., J. Kim, Y. Xue, Y. Chao, A. Eldering, R. Fovell, A. Hall, Q. Li, K. N. Liou, J. McWilliams, S. Kapnick, R. Vasic, F. De Sales, Y. Yu (2009) Simulating the Sierra Nevada Snowpack: The Impact of Snow Albedo and Multi-Layer Snow Physics. In the 2009 Climate Action Team Report to the Governor and Legislature. California Energy Commission and Environmental Protection Agency. www.climatechange.ca.gov/publications/cat/index.html. De Sales, F. (2006) Examining the impacts of dynamic downscaling method and vegetation biophysical processes on the South American regional climate simulation. Doctoral Dissertation. University of California. Los Angeles. CA AWARDS UCLA Staff Achievement Award 2009 UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship 2005-2006 CONFERENCES PRESENTATIONS (last four) World Climate Research Program Open Science Conference (Denver, 2011) Title: Dynamic downscaling of CFS winter seasonal simulations over the United States using the ETA/SSIB-3 model American Geophysical Union Meeting of the Americas (Foz do Iguacu, 2010) Title: Assessing a regional climate model's downscaling ability in reproducing the seasonal precipitation and inter-annual precipitation variability over South America with the intensity-scale verification technique American Geophysical Union Meeting of the Americas (Foz do Iguacu, 2010) Title: On the usage of GCM to assess the spatial and seasonal characteristics and uncertainty of climate and vegetation biophysical process feedbacks Meeting of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (Montreal, 2009) Title: Assessing the Dynamic Downscaling Ability over South America with the Intensity-Scale Verification Approach TEACHING EXPERIENCE UCLA Departments of Geography and of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences Climatology Tropical Climatology Introduction to Biophysical Modeling of Land Surface Processes PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS American Meteorological Society American Geophysical Union MANUSCRIPT REVIEWER The National Science Foundation Journal of Climate - American Meteorological Society Journal of Geophysical Research - American Geophysical Union Climate Dynamics - Springer Berlin / Heidelberg COMPUTER SKILLS Numerical models of the atmosphere NCEP Global Forecast System. NCEP ETA Regional Circulation model. NCAR WRF (ARW and NMM cores) model. UCLA Atmospheric General Circulation model. SSiB vegetation biophysical processes model. Programming languages FORTRAN and UNIX shell scripting (over 12 years of experience). Grid Analysis and Display System (over 10 years of experience). Statistical analysis software (R and MATLAB)