Qihua Peng
Associate Professor
Email: qpeng@nju.edu.cn
Website: https://qihuapengclimate.github.io/
Career Overview
Qihua Peng is an Associate Professor at the School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, where he also holds the title of Zhicheng Young Professor and serves as a doctoral advisor. He is a recipient of a national young talent program in China. His research centers on air–sea interaction, ocean dynamics, and climate change, with a particular focus on uncovering new dynamical mechanisms of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and understanding how global warming affects the ocean–atmosphere system. As first author, he has published several papers in leading international journals, including Nature Climate Change, Nature Geoscience, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. His work has been recognized as ESI Hot Papers and Highly Cited Papers, and has been featured by major international media outlets such as Science, NASA, CBS, and NPR. His research has been selected as one of the “Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in Oceanography and Limnology in China,” and his doctoral dissertation received the Chinese Academy of Sciences Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, an honor granted to only 100 dissertations nationwide each year. He acts as a reviewer for a number of leading journals, including Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Journal of Climate, and Geophysical Research Letters.
I am currently recruiting postdoctoral researchers, Ph.D. students, and master's students. Please feel free to contact me via email (qpeng@nju.edu.cn) if you are interested in joining our team.
Education
| 2013 - 2019 | Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| 2016 - 2018 | Joint Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego |
| 2009 - 2013 | B.Sc. in Ocean Science, Nanjing University |
Employment
| 2026 - present | Associate Professor, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University |
| 2021 - 2025 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego |
| 2019 - 2021 | Assistant Research Scientist, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Research Interests
Air-sea interaction; El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Climate change; Ocean dynamics
Selected publications
| Peng, Q., Xie, S. P., Miyamoto, A., Deser, C., Zhang, P., & Luongo, M. T. (2025). Strong 2023–2024 El Niño generated by ocean dynamics. Nature Geoscience, 1-8. |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., & Deser, C., (2024). Collapsed upwelling weakens ENSO under sustained warming beyond the 21st century. Nature Climate Change, 14(8), 815-822. |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., Passalacqua, G., Miyamoto A., & Deser, C., (2024). The 2023 extreme coastal El Niño: Atmospheric and air-sea coupling mechanisms. Science Advances, 10(12). |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., Huang R., Wang, W., Zu, T., & Wang, D. (2023). Indonesian Throughflow slowdown under global warming: Remote AMOC effect vs. regional surface forcing. Journal of Climate, 36(5),1301-1318. |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., Wang, D., Huang R., Chen G., Shu Y., et al. (2022). Surface warming–induced global acceleration of upper ocean currents. Science Advances, 8(16). |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., Wang, D., Kamae, Y., Zhang, H., Hu, S., et al. (2020). Eastern Pacific wind effect on the evolution of El Niño: Implications for ENSO diversity. Journal of Climate, 33(8), 3197-3212. |
| Peng, Q., Xie, S.-P., Wang, D., Zheng, X.-T., & Zhang, H. (2019). Coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics of the 2017 extreme coastal El Niño. Nature Communications, 10(1), 298. |
| Xie, S.-P., Peng, Q.#(co-first author), Kamae, Y., Zheng, X.-T., Tokinaga, H., & Wang, D. (2018). Eastern Pacific ITCZ dipole and ENSO diversity. Journal of Climate, 31(11), 4449-4462. |
| Peng, Q., Huang, R.-X., Wang, W., & Wang, D. (2020). The main heaving modes in the Pacific Ocean. Journal of Tropical Oceanography, 39(2), 1-10. |