Ashok Kumar Gupta, Ph.D.

I study how aerosols, clouds, and radiation interact to shape weather and climate, from tropical convection and cirrus to polar mixed-phase clouds. My approach combines NASA satellite and airborne observations with climate model output, radiative-transfer and cloud-resolving simulations, and machine learning, guided by a recurring question: what does the vertical and size-resolved structure of aerosols and clouds reveal that column-integrated quantities cannot? Current themes include mineral dust, from its evolving global cycle to its role in cloud microphysics — the warm-rain and ice-crystal processes that govern precipitation; the radiative structure of tropical cirrus and polar clouds; the atmospheric and climate impacts of volcanic eruptions; and physics-informed deep learning for satellite retrievals, observation-consistent datasets, and model parameterizations.