NASA Postdoctoral Program - Earth Sciences: Remote Sensing of Clouds and Aerosols

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects. This specific opportunity focuses on using theoretical and experimental investigations of the spectral, angular, and polarization properties of scattered sunlight to develop and apply techniques for inferring the optical and radiative properties of clouds and aerosol particles in the Earth's atmosphere. Researchers will examine satellite, aircraft, and ground-based remote observations collected during recent field experiments targeting marine stratocumulus, arctic stratus, boundary layer cumulus, and high-altitude cirrus clouds, in the presence and absence of sulfate, smoke, and dust aerosols. The goal is to develop and apply methods to extract the optical thickness, effective size, and spectral absorption properties of cloud and aerosol particles, study the effect of aerosol particles on cloud microphysics and albedo, and ultimately assess impacts on the Earth's radiation budget in studies of current and future climates. These competitive fellowships are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology.