Dr. Syed Zahid Husain
Dr. Syed Zahid Husain has been working as a research scientist within the RPN-A (Recherche en prévision numérique atmosphérique) section of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) since 2012. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 in computational fluid dynamics from Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
During his doctoral studies, Dr. Husain developed spectrally-accurate algorithms based on immersed boundary conditions for solving flow through channels in the presence of surface roughness. Later in 2009, he joined RPN as a post-doctoral fellow where he was initially responsible for conceptualizing and developing an advanced urban canopy parameterization scheme with multi-layer canopy-atmosphere interactions. Afterwards, he was involved in the development of the Soil, Vegetation, and Snow (SVS) scheme for addressing the limitations of ECCC's existing land-surface parameterization scheme for operational numerical weather prediction (NWP).
As a member of RPN’s research group on numerical methods, Dr. Husain's present work primarily focuses on improving the dynamics aspect of ECCC's NWP model to achieve better forecast accuracy for the department's various operational NWP systems. He contributes to refining the existing operational model as well as through new model developments to meet the requirements for devising the next-generation NWP systems. He has been a lead developer of a new height-based dynamical core of the GEM model that provides enhanced stability over steeper orography and thus will improve ECCC's high-resolution forecasting capabilites over complex terrain.
Current research and/or projects
- Improving stabilty of the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model for high-resolution (sub-kilometer scale) simulations over complex terrain.
- Developing an optimal dynamics-physics coupling strategy for numerical weather prediction.
Education and awards
Ph.D. (2009): Computational fluid dynamics, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
B.Sc. (2001): Mechanical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Key publications
Husain, S.Z., Girard, C., Separovic, L., Plante, A., and Corvec, S. (2020): On the progressive attenuation of fine-scale orography contributions to the vertical coordinate surfaces within a terrain-following coordinate system. Monthly Weather Review, DOI: 10.1175/MWR-D-20-0085.1.
Husain, S.Z., Girard, C., Qaddouri, A., and Plante, A. (2019): A new dynamical core of the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model with a height-based terrain-following vertical coordinate. Monthly Weather Review, 147: 2555-2578.
Husain, S.Z., and Girard, C. (2017): Impact of consistent semi-Lagrangian trajectory calculations on numerical weather prediction performance. Monthly Weather Review, 145: 4127-4150.
Husain, S.Z., Alavi, N., Bélair, S., Carrera, M., Zhang, S., Fortin, V., Abrahamowicz, M., and Gauthier, N. (2016): The multi-budget Soil, Vegetation, and Snow (SVS) scheme for land surface parameterization: offline warm season evaluation. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 17: 2293-2313.
Husain, S.Z., Separovic, L., Yu, W., and Fernig, D. (2014): Extended-range high-resolution dynamical downscaling over a continental-scale spatial domain with atmospheric and surface nudging. Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, 119, 13720-13750.
Husain, S.Z. and Floryan, J.M. (2014): Efficient over-determined implementation of the immersed boundary conditions method. Computers & Fluids, 105, 194-203.
Husain, S.Z., Bélair, S., and Leroyer, S. (2014): Influence of soil moisture on urban microclimate and surface-layer meteorology in Oklahoma City. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, vol. 53, pp. 83-98.
Husain, S.Z., Bélair, S., Mailhot, J., and Leroyer, S. (2013): Improving the representation of the nocturnal near-neutral layer in the urban environment with a mesoscale atmospheric model. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, vol. 147, pp. 525-551.