NASA Postdoctoral Program - Coupling between Stratospheric Variability and Tropical Convection

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on understanding how stratospheric variability impacts surface weather and climate on timescales ranging from days to decades. Over the tropics, the nature of this coupling is not well understood. The project is broadly oriented towards using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) ModelE middle atmosphere climate model in concert with both NASA reanalyses and remote sensing to identify the mechanisms and timescales by which the stratosphere influences tropical convection. The successful candidate will use NASA/GISS climate models and multiple sources of observed data to study the processes of coupling between the stratosphere and the troposphere with the goal of improving the GISS global climate model and make the model response to changes in stratospheric dynamical and compositional changes more coherent and more skillful. This opportunity is closed to applicants who are Senior Fellows (5-years or more past PhD).