Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

Topical Areas Relevant to CIRA

1. Research and Postdoctoral Research Fellowships:
   • Satellite Algorithm Development, Training, and Education: Development of algorithms and applications for weather forecasting, emphasizing regional and mesoscale meteorological phenomena. Development of environmental parameter retrieval techniques based on current and future satellites, potentially in concert with in situ, or other remote sensing observations. Development of training/educational materials for operational forecasters using distance learning methods and web-based demonstrations.
   • Regional to Global Scale Modeling Systems: Providing improvements to weather and climate numerical prediction. Topics include atmospheric and ocean dynamics, radiative forcing, clouds and moist convection, land surface modeling, hydrology, and coupled modeling of the Earth system.
   • Data Assimilation: Development and improvement of techniques to assimilate environmental observations (satellite, terrestrial, oceanic, and biological) to characterize the environmental state for use in analysis, modeling, and prediction of weather/climate.
   • Climate/Weather Processes: Use numerical models and environmental data, including satellite observations, to understand processes that are important to predicting weather and short-term climate and understanding the coupling between weather and regional climate.
   • Data Distribution: Identify effective and efficient methods for quickly distributing/displaying large environmental datasets (observational and model fields) using data networrks, web map services, data compression algorithms, and other techniques.
2. Information Technology Support:
   • Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Linux Cluster Administration, Linux and Windows IT, Data Acquisition, Large Data Set Processing and Archive, Satellite Operations, Infrastructure Management, Web Development, Database Development and Maintenance, Network Management.
3. Administrative Support:
   • Customer service, grants management and administration, and general office duties