"With intellectual pleasure, truth becomes clearer and clearer"
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Weaving Empirical And Virtual Evidence (WEAVE) Lab
Email:
Welcome to the research group of Youtong Zheng (郑又通) at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Houston. The Weaving Empirical and Virtual Evidence (WEAVE) lab integrates observations, numerical modeling, and data-driven methods to advance the understanding and prediction of clouds, convection, and climate. The lab name WEAVE reflects our central research philosophy: the most powerful understanding of the atmosphere emerges when different forms of evidence are woven together. We aim to create a synthesis where empirical and virtual evidence together provide deeper physical understanding, sharper model diagnosis, and more actionable insights for improving the predictability of earth system models. Recent topics of interest include convection-permitting simulations of deep convection and precipitation, and application of ML/AI in convective storm physics.
See the story about the PI in the DOE/ARM news.
We are looking for a self-motivated PhD student or Postdoc to join my research group. Please shoot me an email if you're interested AND self-motivated.
News
May 2026: Congratulate Raymond for being awarded the department's Outstanding Graduate Work in Atmospheric Award. [Link]
Feb 2026: Congratulate Raymond for being awarded the Outstanding Student Presentation Award of the Fifth Symposium on Community Modeling and Innovation at the AMS 2026 Annual Meeting. [Link] [EAS Newsletter]
Jan 2026: Our group had a strong scientific presence at the AMS Annual Meeting, delivering eight presentations spanning multiple research themes ranging from coastal storms to marine shallow clouds. [Link]
Jan 2026: Congratulate Ronin on his selection as a prestigious DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Fellow. He has recently arrived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he will spend the next two semesters investigating Arctic cloud processes using DOE’s state-of-the-art Earth system models. Read the full story from the NSM News and Events.
Nov 2025: Congratulate Malinda for being awarded the 2nd place of Student Poster Presentation Award of the 27th Annual Robert E. Sheriff Lecture.
June 2025: Congratulate Ashish for being awarded the University of Houston College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Alumni Association (Eckhard Pfeifer/Carolyn Farb) Scholarship for the academic year 2025-2026.
May 2025: Congratulate Oussama and Raymond for being awarded the department's Outstanding Academic Achievement Scholarship in Atmospheric Science.
April 2025: I received the University of Houston President's Circle Award for "receiving national recognition during 2023-2024".
March 2025: Congratulate Raymond for being awarded the DOE Lawrence Livermore National Lab Atmospheric, Earth & Energy Graduate Student Summer Internship.
Dec 2024: Our research group presented three studies at the 2024 AGU annual conference: I gave a poster presentation about GCM simulations of tropical anvil clouds [presentation webpage], Raymond presented a poster on SCREAM simulations of deep convection during the TRACER [presentation webpage], and Mampi delivered an oral presentation on the microphysical control of shallow rain evaporation [presentation webpage].
Aug 2024: I delivered an Early Career Planetary Presentation at the 2024 DOE EESM PI Meeting.
Nov 2023: I was invited as a speaker at the UH STEM Zone Saturday Program, performing atmospheric science outreach to inspire the younger generation from across 23 counties.
Sep 2023: I received the Early Career Award of $875,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy [news article].
Jan 2023: I gave a presentation about understanding cloudiness in the GFDL Atmosphere Model at the 2023 AMS conference. [talk webpage]
Dec 2022: The paper "Low-Level Cloud Budgets across Sea Ice Edges", co-authored with Yi Ming, is now published in the Journal of Climate. [article webpage]
Jan 2022: I gave two talks (one about shallow cloud transition and one about cloud-top radiative cooling) at the 2022 AMS conference. [talk#1] [talk#2]
Dec 2021: The paper "Idealized Large-Eddy Simulations of Stratocumulus Advecting over Cold Water. Part I: Boundary Layer Decoupling" is now published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. [article webpage]
Oct 2021: I was interviewed by the U.S. Department of Energy ARM. [article webpage]