NASA Postdoctoral Program - Ocean Circulation Studies Combining Satellite Data and Models

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects. 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 research opportunity aims to describe and understand physical processes governing large-scale global ocean circulation from assimilating satellite observations with models of the ocean. The research builds on analyses of the Consortium for Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) with particular emphasis on the ocean's large-scale seasonal-to-decadal climate variability by analyzing fluxes and budgets of heat and freshwater, circulation pathways, dynamic balances, and causal mechanisms. Research opportunities include analysis of observations and modeling results, development and application of advanced modeling and data assimilation tools including model adjoints, and investigation of the relative merits of different observing systems. The fellowship is located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.