About Fiona Lo

Fiona Lo

Climate Scientist

Contact

Remote Office

Work

Areas of expertise:

Climate change, pollen, machine learning, atmospheric dynamics, climate modeling and hydrology

Dr. Fiona Lo’s research focuses on human health and societal impacts due to near-term warming and rate of warming. She investigates human health consequences due to a warming climate, such as heat-related mortality and adverse allergic outcomes. She explores cooling methods to reduce heat risk to vulnerable populations. Dr. Lo also supports climate science communications at EDF.

Background

Dr. Fiona Lo is a climate scientist on Environmental Defense Fund’s climate science team. She earned a Ph.D. and M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from University of Washington and a B.S. in Planetary Science from the California Institute of Technology. She has developed weather-based pollen model to help allergy sufferers manage their symptoms. She’s identified regions vulnerable to future drought, analyzed the timing of monsoons, observed shoreline erosion, monitored Arctic hydrology and predicted atmospheric dynamical phenomena.

Education

Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

B.S. in Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology

Publications

Parsons, L. A., Lo, F., Ward, A., Shindell, D., & Raman, S. R. (2023). Higher temperatures in socially vulnerable US communities increasingly limit safe use of electric fans for cooling. GeoHealth, 7, e2023GH000809. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GH000809

Lo, F., Bitz, C. M., Hess, J.J., (2021) Development of Random Forest Model for Forecasting Allergenic Pollen, Sci. Total Environ, 773, 145590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145590

Saha, S., Vaidyanathan A., Lo, F., Brown, C., Hess, J.J. (2021) Short term physician visits and medication prescriptions for allergic disease associated with seasonal tree, grass, and weed pollen exposure across the United States, Environ Health 20, 85. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-021-00766-3

Hall, J., Lo, F., Saha, S., Vaidyanathan, A., Hess, J.J. (2020) Internet Searches Offer Insight into Early-Season Pollen Patterns in Observation-Free Zones. Nature Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68095-y

Lo, F., Bitz, C.M., Battisti, D.S., Hess, J.J. (2019) Pollen calendars and maps of allergenic pollen in North America, Aerobiologia, 35, 613-633. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-019-09601-2

Mahowald, N., Lo, F., Zheng, Y., Harrison, L., Funk, C., Lombardozzi, D., and Goodale, C. (2016) Projections of leaf area index in earth system models, Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 211–229. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-211-2016

Shindell, D.T., J.-F. Lamarque, M. Schulz, M. Flanner, C. Jiao, M. Chin, P.J. Young, Y.H. Lee, L. Rotstayn, N. Mahowald, G. Milly, G. Faluvegi, Y. Balkanski, W.J. Collins, A.J. Conley, S. Dalsoren, R. Easter, S. Ghan, Horowitz, L., Liu, X., Myhre, G., Nagashima, T., Naik, V., Rumbold, S. T., Skeie, R.,Sudo, K., Szopa, S., Takemura, T., Voulgarakis, A., Yoon, J, F. Lo, (2013) Radiative forcing in the ACCMIP historical and future climate simulations, Atmos Chem Phys, 13, 2939-74. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2939-2013

IPCC, 2013: Annex II: Climate System Scenario Tables [Prather, M., G. Flato, P. Friedlingstein, C. Jones, J.-F. Lamarque, H. Liao and P. Rasch (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

Liepert, B.& Lo, F. (2013) CMIP5 update of ‘Inter-model variability and biases of the global water cycle in CMIP3 coupled climate models’, Environ. Res. Lett, 8, 029401. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/029401

Lo, F., Wheeler,M., Meinke, H., Donald, A. (2007) Probabilistic forecasts of the Onset of the North Australian Wet Season. Mon. Wea. Rev., 135 (10), 3506-3520. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR3473.1

Serreze, M.C., Barrett, A., Lo, F., (2004) Northern High Latitude Precipitation as Depicted by Atmospheric Reanalyses and Satellite, Mon. Wea. Rev., 133(2): 3407-3430. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR3047.1

Lo, F. & Clark, M.P. (2002) Relationships between Spring Snow Mass and Summer Precipitation in the Southwestern United States Associated with the North American Monsoon System, J Climate, 15 (11) 1378-85 https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1378:RBSSMA>2.0.CO;2

Lo, F., & Hendon, H. (2000) Empirical Extended-Range Prediction of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, Mon. Wea. Rev., 128(7), 2528-2543. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(2000)128<2528:EERPOT>2.0.CO;2

Hartmann D.L. & Lo, F. (1998) Wave-Driven Zonal Flow Vacillation in the Southern Hemisphere, J. Atoms. Sci., 55(8) 1303-1315. https://doi.org/10.1175/15200469(1998)055<1303:WDZFVI>2.0.CO;2