(Hong Kong, 23 November 2024) At the recent 2024 ASAIHL Conference (Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning) held at the Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia on 19-22 November 2024, our RISE member Prof. George Zhizhao Liu was invited to represent Hong Kong and present Hong Kong (China)’s Region/Country Report at the conference. The theme of this year’s ASAIHL conference is “University’s Role in Advancing Climate Crises Reduction.” An the conference, Prof. Liu gave an invited talk titled “AI and Satellite Remote Sensing: the State-of-the-art Technology to Map the Most Abundant Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas –– Water Vapor”, which illustrated the importance of accurate water vapor observation in the climate change and extreme weather studies and showcased the research work conducted in Prof. Liu’s Micro-Laboratory of Atmospheric Research and Geomatics Engineering (Micro-LARGE) in the field of climate change.
Water vapor, as the largest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, plays a critically important role in climate change and extreme weather events. This might be against the orthodox opinion that usually believes the carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest greenhouse gas. Water vapor accounts for approximately 50% atmospheric greenhouse gas, depending on the weather conditions. Nevertheless, the accurate observation of water vapor is still a global technical challenge. A large number of satellites have been launched and many have the capability to observe water vapor at different wavelength channels. Unfortunately the water vapor data accuracy of most of these satellite sensors is low and cannot meet the requirement for climate change and extreme weather studies. Prof. Liu’s Micro-LARGE Lab insightfully pinpointed this problem and has developed different AI-based novel algorithms to significantly improve the accuracy of water vapor observations of different satellite sensors.
The Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning (ASAIHL), founded in Bangkok, Thailand in 1956, is a non-governmental organization starting with eight state universities in Southeast Asia but now with university memberships extending to Europe, North America, Africa, and Oceania. ASAIHL’s purpose is to assist member institutions to strengthen themselves through mutual self-help and to achieve international distinction in teaching, research and public service.
In addition, Prof. Liu also recently gave a specially invited conference presentation at the 6th National Mesoscale Meteorology Conference hosted by the Sun Yat-sen University (Zhuhai) at Zhuhai, Mainland China on 7-10 November 2024.
