"From Reanalysis to Seasonal Prediction: An Overview of Current and Future Directions in Greenhouse Gas Modeling at NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office" with Lesley Ott, NASA GMAO.
"From Reanalysis to Seasonal Prediction: An Overview of Current and Future Directions in Greenhouse Gas Modeling at NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office" with Lesley Ott, NASA GMAO.
The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) leads NASA’s development of modeling tools aimed at integrating diverse information provided by Earth observations during the satellite era. These include the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), which includes a general circulation model and data assimilation system, and is used to plan future satellite missions, advance prediction on weather and seasonal timescales, and provide widely used climate data records to track multi-decadal changes. Across all timescales and products, GMAO seeks to represent the Earth as a system by incorporating processes that influence atmospheric composition and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.
This seminar is intended to provide a broad overview of GHG capabilities in GEOS as well as future directions and challenges. First, we highlight the development of a concentration-based GHG monitoring system, which leverages state estimation techniques originally developed for weather and ozone, and its application to detect recent changes in carbon dioxide sources and sinks. We discuss progress toward inclusion of this capability in GMAO’s upcoming Reanalysis of the 21st Century and the GEOS Composition Forecasting (GEOS-CF) system, developed in collaboration with Harvard University and used to predict changes in atmospheric trace gases with daily 5-day forecasts. We also briefly demonstrate the potential of seasonal predictions to skillfully predict some aspects of ecosystem-atmosphere carbon exchange several months in advance. Finally, we conclude by introducing how GMAO’s GHG capabilities support several new NASA-wide initiatives, including the Earth Information System (EIS), which aims to support open science and applications by leveraging emerging cloud storage and computing capabilities.
Lesley Ott is a climate scientist with 20 years experience studying air pollution and greenhouse gases. She received her PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Maryland in 2006 and has been working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center ever since. She currently leads the carbon group within the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA’s center for understanding contemporary weather and climate using a family of advanced Earth system modeling tools. Her work focuses on using a combination of satellite data and numerical models to better understand the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and how the processes that control them may change over time. She also coordinates a group of university and government scientists that aims to inform how future satellite missions can improve understanding of carbon pollution and public policy.
Visit the event page for more information and to register. Harvard SEAS community only.
Contact: xfeng@g.harvard.edu
LOCATION:100F Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford St., Cambridge STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20230428T160000Z DTEND:20230428T170000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR