Description

This fellowship opportunity at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) focuses on advancing data assimilation research in marine meteorology and Earth system forecasting. Co-located with the Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center (FNMOC), NRL offers access to operational global and regional data assimilation systems and real-time global databases.

Research areas include:

• Improving mesoscale and global data assimilation systems
• Developing coupled and next-generation data assimilation methods
• Addressing nonlinearity in prediction and observation models
• Creating efficient computational algorithms for high-resolution operational use
• Direct assimilation of all-sky microwave (MW) and infrared (IR) radiances
• Applying artificial intelligence to detect and correct errors in conventional and satellite observations
• Initializing tropical cyclones and optimizing dropsonde data selection
• Coupled data assimilation for atmosphere, ocean, land, sea-ice, waves, aerosols, and trace gases
• Assimilation in polar regions, especially the Arctic
• Estimating observation bias, covariance, forecast, and model errors
• Using Kalman filters/smoothers, particle filters, Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chains, and ensemble methods
• Analyzing mesoscale features in coastal zones
• Incorporating new atmospheric data types such as satellite, Doppler radar, unmanned platforms, and opportunistic observations
• Improving land surface components including soil moisture and precipitation initialization

The NRL Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System-Accelerated Representer (NAVDAS-AR) transitioned to operations in 2009 and was upgraded to Hybrid 4D-Var in 2016, providing a strong foundation for ongoing research.