The conditions required for Earth-like life to emerge on a planetary body are thought to include the presence of liquid water, the availability of energy and the existence of organic material. There are situations when determining whether the above conditions exist on a planetary body is not possible without a detailed understanding of the radiative processes occurring in a planet's atmosphere. In this work, studies of the radiative flux and transfer within planetary atmospheres are carried out in order to elucidate whether certain planetary bodies may be habitable.

Large mainshocks can alter stress field on subsurface asperities across broad spatial and temporal windows, which would promote or inhibit fault motion. Beyond rapid rupture during earthquakes, fault can also slip at a steady rate without seismic radiation. In between these two end members, slow slip events have been documented within the conditionally stable transition zone.

Wildfires release large amounts of greenhouse gases, carbonaceous aerosols, and other pollutants, therefore having complex impacts on the earth climate, local weather, and air quality. To study the transport of the wildfire emissions, a plume height dataset has been developed. The resulting dataset from 2002 to 2010 captured well the observed MISR plume height distribution. By adding the plume height dataset in the climate model, the plume-rise enhanced AOD downstream of the wildfire spots by 20 to 50%.