Wanying Kang

Professor Wanting Kang investigates large-scale atmospheric and oceanic dynamics, and their effects on the climate of Earth and other planetary bodies. She uses theories and numerical modeling to understand the geophysical fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans on Earth and beyond, such as terrestrial exoplanets, disintegrating lava planets, and icy satellites like Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan. Applying tools developed for climate science on Earth to planetary science questions has the potential to give answers about what makes a planet habitable, and how biosignatures might be detected. Investigations into extreme worlds can even give us clues about ancient conditions on Earth and other planets—how they formed and how their climates evolved, and how Earth’s climate may continue to evolve. With next-generation instrumentation, there will soon be opportunities to make more detailed observations of exoplanets in the near future, and so one goal is to find potentially observable consequences through numerical simulations and collaborations with other groups at MIT.