Post Doctoral Associate

EPCAPE Overview

The Eastern Pacific Cloud, Aerosol, and Precipitation Experiment (EPCAPE) was designed to investigate Aerosol-Cloud Interactions and cloud brightening in California marine stratocumulus. The experiment took place in La Jolla, California, where the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility #1 (AMF1) was deployed on the Scripps Pier, which juts several hundred feet into the Pacific Ocean. A second site, Mt. Soledad, was located 3-km inland from the Scripps Pier at an elevation of 250-m and housed Scanning Cloud Radars (SACRs) and a subset of the AMF remote sensors, including a Doppler Lidar, alongside a full suite of in-situ aerosol and cloud analysis instrumentation.

Research Focus

A central theme of EPCAPE is the characterization of aerosols and cloud droplet distributions in marine clouds of differing background aerosol composition and to relate these distributions to in-cloud turbulence and cloud brightening. The Doppler lidars at the pier and on Mt. Soledad characterized subcloud TKE profiles with 2-s resolution and provided a first-line assessment of the integrated turbulence in the subcloud layer and the distribution of vertical velocities adjacent to cloud base. These measurements complement detailed aerosol and microphysical assays at Mt. Soledad, providing a laboratory to investigate aerosol-cloud interactions and their relationship with in-cloud turbulence in unprecedented detail.

Responsibilities

• Assist in all phases of EPCAPE-related research conducted as part of a successful, joint proposal between Rutgers University and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
• Contribute to a separate project funded by the National Science Foundation that involves process mechanics in marine boundary layer clouds.
• Work effectively in a team and have a demonstrated record of public presentations at research conferences commensurate with a highly energetic research enterprise.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science with demonstrated expertise in marine boundary layer cloud microphysics, specifically cloud droplet nucleation processes, aerosol measurement and characterization techniques, and remote sensing using active sensors.
• A record of publication demonstrating a process-level understanding of the forces that shape marine cloud microphysics.
• An intimate knowledge of marine boundary layer thermodynamics, including decoupling, and the scale and nature of mesoscale circulations.
• Experience using MATLAB or Python scripting languages.