Posts by Collection

portfolio

Different Weather Forecasting Techniques

Coconut, NWP, AI, S2S Hindcasts, Data Assimilation

Orthogonal Four-Basis Decomposition for PV Tendency Analysis

A mathematically clean way to separate PV intensification, propagation, and wave-breaking deformation.

Atmospheric Blocking Prediction from the Traffic Jam Theory

Defining an ‘exceedance’ event as a harbinger of atmospheric blockings.

What Determines Wave Breaking Orientations during Blocking Events

Roles of meridional wind shear 𝝏𝒖/𝝏𝒚 and diabatic heating on blockings and associated RWB orientations

[Intro] From Gaussian Processes to Deep Generative Models for Downscaling

A walkthrough of how the classical covariance-based estimation operator evolves into modern generative downscaling.

[Paper] Downscaling of Extreme Precipitation over Puerto Rico

Downscaling extreme precipitation across Puerto Rico in current and future climates.

[Paper] Ensemble-Consistent Gaussian Process Reconstruction

A geometry-aware Gaussian process framework constrained by ensemble covariance structure.

Fair-Value Engine: Probabilistic Pricing for Event Contracts

Fair values for a contract.

Bayesian Prob for Pricing Reliability

Bayesian Model on Pricing.

Multi-Solitary (Tsunami) Wave

Numerical analyses on multi-solitary wave run-ups.

Computer Vision on High-Voltage Energized Equipment

Using SAM and yolov8 to identify high-voltage energized equipment and automatically detect defections with machine-generated solutions.

Computer Vision on Vehicular Flux-Density Relationship Regression

Using yolov8 to calculate vehicle density and speed to optimize highway carriage.

A Published Essay on the Commercial Press of China

Once upon a time, I almost became a historian.

publications

Numerical Analysis on Run-Up of Multi-Solitary Waves on A Planar Slope

Published in ISOPE International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference, 2024

Numerical simulations of multi-solitary wave run-ups over a planar slope. Scheme: FUNWAVE-TVD. Results compared with lab results.

Recommended citation: Yan, Xingjian, Xu, Yiyang, and Liu, Hua. "Numerical Analysis on Run-up of Multi-Solitary Waves on a Planar Slope." Paper presented at the The 34th International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference, Rhodes, Greece, June 2024.
Download Paper | Download Slides

Traffic Bottlenecks: Predicting Atmospheric Blocking with a Diminishing Flow Capacity

Published in Geophysical Research Letters, 2024

Using NH18 to define LWA flux exceedance events, this paper explores predictors of blocking onset in the traffic jam theory. A downstream reduction in flow capacity is common for both exceedance and blocking events, similar to how lane closures favor traffic jams. Blocks are co-located with exceedance events in space but not in time, limiting the predictive utility of the traffic jam theory.

Recommended citation: Yan, X., Wang, L., Gerber, E. P., Castañeda, V., & Ho, K. Y. (2024). Traffic bottlenecks: Predicting atmospheric blocking with a diminishing flow capacity. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL111035. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL111035
Download Paper | Download Slides

Ensemble–Conditional Gaussian Processes: Classical Foundations and a Discrete Vector-Space Equivalence

Published in Arxiv, 2026

Mathematical proof on the equivalence among inference using Conditional Gaussian Process, Maximum a posteriori estimation, Roproducing Kernel Hilbert Space, and Kalman FIltering (under the linear Gaussian setting).

Recommended citation: Ravela, S., Kim, J. D., Gee, K., Yan, X., Mercier, S., Albarghouty, L., & Saha, A. (2026). Ensemble-Conditional Gaussian Processes (Ens-CGP): Representation, Geometry, and Inference. arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.13871.
Download Paper | Download Slides

software

HPC netCDF Parallelization

Portable, environment-aware netCDF/HDF5 I/O + parallel-compute optimization for large gridded climate data on any HPC.

PV Tendency Decomposition

Orthogonal four-basis decomposition tools for PV tendency analysis.

talks

A Data-Driven Examination on the Traffic Model Analogy for Blocking Statistics

Published: December 14, 2023

You can find the eLightning poster here.

Predicting Atmospheric Blocking with the Traffic Jam Mechanism: The Role of Merging

Published: March 19, 2024

You can find the poster here.

Numerical Analysis on Run-Up of Multi-Solitary Waves on A Planar Slope

Published: June 18, 2024

You can find the slides here.

Summer and Winter Extratropical Storm Track Changes in both ERA5 Reanalysis (Past Changes) and CMIP6 SSP5-8.5 Experiment (Future Projection) - a Simple Eulerian Approach

Published: December 05, 2024

A final project for MIT Course 12.842. You can find the poster here. You can also find the paper write up here.

Do AI Weather Forecast Models Respect Atmosphere Dynamics?

Published: May 13, 2025

A final project for MIT Course 12.810. You can find the slides here. You can also find the paper write up here.

Mechanisms Controlling Wave Breaking Orientations during Blocking Events

Published: June 15, 2025

I delivered a 15-minute slide talk at the stormtracks workshop in Rosendal, Norway on Wednesday. The workshop is hosted by UiB - Univ. of Bergen. You can find my slides here.

Can Machine Learning Produce Climate Invariant Downscaling?

Published: December 19, 2025

I delivered a 15-minute slide talk at the 2025 AGU in New Orleans, LA. You can find my slides here.

A Potential Vorticity Approach to the Growth, Maintenance, and Decay of Blocking Events

Published: January 27, 2026

I delivered a 12-minute slide talk at the 2026 AMS AOFD in Houston, TX. You can find my slides here.

teaching

NYU Math Course Notes

Course Notes, NYU Courant, 2021

These are my handwritten notes in OneNote format. Note that there may be Mandarin or French symbols. Click on the course name to open the notebook.

MIT EAPS Course Notes

Course Notes, MIT EAPS, 2024

These are my handwritten notes in OneNote format. Note that there may be Mandarin symbols. Click on the course name to open the notebook. Some of them had accessibility issues due to OneNote school account reasons; feel free to email me for a copy of such notes.

Machine Learning on Dynamical Systems

Machine Learning, MIT EAPS, 2025

I’ve started taking an off-cycle course 12.S592 on machine learning taught by Sai Ravela, with a focus on (non-Gaussian) dynamical systems. My desired final project is on extratropical cyclone downscaling, using a reduced stochastic model. Here are some PSet notes and schematic solutions, because they are very interesting problems to think about.

Xingjian (Ken) Yan