(Credit to NASA JPL)

Current position

NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Riverside

Research interest

Astrobiology; Atmosphere evolution; Planetary science; Climate modeling; Paleoclimate

The overarching of my work is to understand the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere billion years ago. Specifically, how oxygen, ozone, methane evolved through time and how these gases interacted in the atmosphere and shaped our Earth’s atmosphere. I mainly use 1-D photochemical model and have been using and improving ‘The Kasting 1-D photochemical model’ written in FORTRAN. The latest version can be found here Ji, A., & Kasting, J. F. (2023). 1-D photochemical model with correlated-k. Zenodo.. I have also constructed a biogeochemical box model for the atmosphere-ocean system.

For my future research, I’m eager to expand my toolkits by gaining more experience in telescopic observations, 3-D dynamic modelings or isotope analyses. Looking ahead, I aspire to couple the photochemical and biogeochemical processes of the whole Earth system into a more dynamic modeling (providing insights for exoplanets!), and then validate modeled results with real data (from either telescopic observations or lab experiments). In addition to explore more in early Earth, exoplanets and astrobiology, I also seek potential opportunities in tackling the pressing climate change and environmental issues with interdisciplinary efforts.

Publications

[1] Ji A, Kasting JF, Najjar RG. (In Preparation) Investigation of O2 level and its stability during the mid-Proterozoic.

[2] Chaverot G, Zorzi A., Ding X, Itcovitz J, Fan B, Bhatnagar S, Ji A, Graham RJ and Mittal T. (2024) Resilience of snowball Earth to stochastic events. Geophysical Research Letters. 51, e2024GL109512. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL109512

[3] Ji A, Tomazzeli O, Palancar G, Chaverot G, Barker M, Fernández R, Minschwaner K, Kasting JF. (2024) A Correlated-k Parameterization for O2 Photolysis in the Schumann-Runge Bands. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 129, e2023JD040610. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2023JD040610.

[4] Ji A, Kasting JF, Cooke GJ, Marsh DR, Tsigaridis K. (2023) Comparison between ozone column depths and methane lifetimes computed by 1-D and 3-D models at different atmospheric O2 levels. Royal Society Open Science. 10(5): 230056. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230056.

[5] Liu P, Liu J, Ji A, Reinhard CT, Planavsky NJ, Babikov D, Najjar RG, Kasting JF. (2021) Triple oxygen isotope constraints on atmospheric O2 and biological productivity during the mid-Proterozoic. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 118(51): e2105074118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105074118.

[6] Ji A, Zhu T, Marín-Moreno H, Lei X. (2021) How gas-hydrate saturation and morphology control seismic attenuation: A case study from the south Hydrate Ridge. Interpretation. 9(2): SD27-SD39. https://doi.org/10.1190/INT-2020-0137.1.

More details about me

Current CV

ResearchGate

Contact information

Address: Geology 2460M, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UC Riverside, CA 92521

Email: aoshuang.ji@ucr.edu