Bowen FanGraduate Student

Research Focus:

Planetary Climate

Email:

bowen27@uchicago.edu

Biography: I received a liberal education at Yuanpei College and earned a B.S. in Physics from Peking University. In 2019, I began my Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Research: I am broadly interested in planetary science and climate science. The intersection of these fields offers rich opportunities to explore physical problems including fluid dynamics, radiative transfer, and phase transitions. My Ph.D. research focuses on the thermal structure and hydrological cycles of arid planets (e.g., early Mars, Titan) and hot planets (e.g., early Venus, early Earth). Beyond my thesis work, I have contributed to studies on snowball Earth, lava exoplanets, and future Mars.

Papers:

B. Fan and E. S. Kite (in prep): The Fade of Eden: Nonlinear Climate Response to Volatile Loss and the Edge of Habitability

B. Fan, Z. Tan, and T. A. Shaw (in prep): Storm Track Weakening in Drier Climates due to Water Vapor Radiative Feedback

M. I. Richardson, S. Ansari, B. Fan, R. Ramirez, H. Mohseni, M. A. Mischna, M. H. Hecht, L. J. Steele, and E. S. Kite (in prep), Atmospheric Dynamics of First Steps Toward Terraforming Mars

K. Loftus, Y. Luo, B. Fan, E. S. Kite (2024): Extreme Weather Variability on Hot Rocky Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Explained by Magma Temperature-Cloud Feedback, arXiv

B. Fan, D. Yang, and D. S. Abbot (2024): Climate Bistability at the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone due to Runaway Greenhouse and Cloud Feedbacks, The Astrophysical Journal Letters

G. Chaverot, A. Zorzi, X. Ding, J. Itcovitz, B. Fan, S. Bhatnagar, A. Ji, R. J. Graham and T. Mittal (2024): Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events, Geophysical Research Letters

B. Fan, M. F. Jansen, M. A. Mischna, and E. S. Kite, (2023): Why Are Mountaintops Cold? The Transition of Surface Lapse Rate on Dry Planets, Geophysical Research Letters

E. S. Kite, M. A. Mischna, B. Fan, A. M. Morgan, S. A. Wilson, and M. I. Richardson, (2022): Changing Spatial Distribution of Water Flow Charts Major Change in Mars’s Greenhouse Effect, Science Advances

B. Fan, Z. Tan, T. A. Shaw, and E. S. Kite, (2021): Reducing Surface Wetness Leads to Tropical Hydrological Cycle Regime Transition, Geophysical Research Letters

J. Nie and B. Fan, (2019): Roles of Dynamic Forcings and Diabatic Heating in Summer Extreme Precipitation in East China and the Southeastern United States, Journal of Climate

Selected Conference Presentations: 

B. Fan and E. S. Kite, (2024): The fade of Eden: regime transitions of hydrological cycles & the edge of habitability, AGU Fall Meeting 2024

B. Fan, Z. Tan, and T. A. Shaw, (2024): Impact of surface drying on large-scale climate dynamics, AOFD 2024

B. Fan, N. Habib, F. Spaulding-Astudillo, E. S. Kite and C. Li, (2022): Gone with the rock wind: A boundary layer model of close-in, rocky exoplanets with condensable-rich atmospheres, AGU Fall Meeting 2022

B. Fan, E. J. Lee, and E. S. Kite, (2021): Squeeze the atmosphere into magma: sub-Neptune mass-radius relation revised by atmosphere-magma interactions, AGU Fall Meeting 2021

B. Fan and E. S. Kite, (2018): Upper limit on a paleo-equatorial ridge from a tidally-disrupted moon of Mars, LPSC 2018

Outreach activity:

I served as a member of the organizing committee for Rossbypalooza 2022.

Rossbypalooza is an international summer school designed for students and postdocs across the fields of atmospheric, oceanic, and planetary sciences. The summer school is organized by graduate students, who are responsible for deciding the theme for the year, applying for funding, inviting faculty, advertising the event, selecting attendees, and managing logistics.

The event received very positive feedback, with 95% of students and 100% of faculty stating, “I would recommend Rossbypalooza to my peers, colleagues, and department.”