Experience

Reanalysis scientist for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Reading, UK.

Abstract: I currently work at the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), within the reanalysis team. I'm taking responsability on the implementation, production and evaluation of land surface reanalysis, but I also support the monitoring and production of the atmospheric counterpart. I'm also very actively involved in the proof-of-concept / pre-operational phase of the C3S service, in particular in the technical management of several Climate Data Records of land surface Essential Climate Variables (ECV) contracts.

Research scientist for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Reading, UK.

Abstract: My research at ECMWF was mainly focused on the SMOS project. I was responsible to develop infrastructure for SMOS data within the IFS. This is a challenging work as SMOS data has proved to be very different from any other source of satellite data, especially given a) the huge volume of of the SMOS dataset and b) the fine angular resolution of the observations. My work at ECMWF was supported by an ESA contract. In the first phase, I developed several thinning filters, I collocated SMOS observations to the ECMWF model grids, I created the interface with an external radiative transfer code in low-frequencies passive microwaves and I developed an offline suite which monitors SMOS data in Near Real Time. In the second phase I prepared the surface analysis (and in particular the soil moisture analysis) to assimilate SMOS data in the ECMWF Simplified Extended Kalman Filter (SEKF), and make it compatible with other remote sensed and conventional data. I also prepared the data to be used optimally in the SEKF. In the final phase of the investigation I studied the impact of these data in the forecast skill of surface and atmospheric variables. I also worked with the covariance matrices of observations and model background to fine-tune the SEKF and make the best possible use of SMOS data (together with other data sensitive to soil moisture) in the SEKF.  Finally, I also developed from scratch an operational processor to generate and disseminate a soil moisture product in NRT based on a neural network trained with SMOS data, which is currently part of the portfolio of SMOS NRT products.

Post-doctoral position at the European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation (CERFACS), Toulouse, France.

Abstract: My research at CERFACS concerned the assimilation of streamflow and soil moisture observations for the monitoring of river flow over French river basins. In particular, I focused on upstream small basins (less than 1500 km²) where fast floods are likely to occur after significant rainfall events. Firstly, I started to assimilate systematic streamflow (or water river levels) observations at selected locations with an ensemble of rainfall-runoff hydrological models. I could not finish the second part of my project, focused on the study of the relationship between soil moisture and the calibration parameters of conceptual hydrological models, because I was recruited by ECMWF. The outcome of my work at CERFACS was twofold; I created material to train flood forecasters in data assimilation, and I developed a hydrological mock-up to investigate the benefits of assimilating streamflow observations into a hydrological model for the accurate prediction of the peak of floods.

PhD: “Remote sensing data assimilation for the monitoring of continental surfaces: Implementation over an experimental site”, Météo-France, Toulouse, France.

Abstract: The research undertaken in the context of my thesis dealt with the assimilation of remote sensing data for the monitoring of ground surface variables. In particular, I analysed the root-zone soil moisture content and the above-ground vegetation biomass. My PhD was framed in the context of the SMOSREX experimental site (as one of the experiences for feasibility studies of the SMOS mission) from the years 2001 to 2004. Firstly, I implemented and compared four assimilation methods applied to surface soil moisture observations, with the objective of correcting the possible deficiencies of the Land Surface Model of Météo-France: the ISBA model. The assimilation methods that I coded were the Extended Kalman Filter, the Ensemble Kalman Filter, the simplified 1D-VAR and the T-Variational method. Secondly, I extended the most performing method in the aforementioned comparison exercise to the joint assimilation of surface soil moisture and LAI observations. Additionally to ground observations, I produced and assimilated surface products derived from (1) brightness temperatures obtained with the LEWIS L-Band radiometer at 1.4 GHz and (2) reflectances over fallow at 5 different spectral bands among the visible, NIR and MIR domains.

Research Assistant/ PhD position at the Mathematical and Geodesy Positioning group of Delft Technical University (TUDelft), The Netherlands.

Abstract: My research at the Aerospace Engineering Faculty of TU Delft focused mainly on the study of the atmospheric phase screen (APS) as the main distorting source for the creation and interpretation of interferograms. First, I used different pairs of SAR acquisitions from the ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites (measurements in the microwave domain, C-band) to construct interferograms using the interferometric technique, controlling each step in their creation (collocation and coregistration, georeference, range and azimuth filtering, etc.) and eliminating the topographic and ground deformation contribution to the interferometric signal. In a second phase, I analysed the delay observed in the interferometric phase produced mainly by the atmospheric water vapor heterogeneities. I combined MERIS and ASAR pairs of ENVISAT satellite acquisitions as a first attempt to correct very accurate APS in InSAR products by using MERIS-derived water vapor maps at 300 m ground resolution over all Holland.

Young Graduate Trainee for the European Space Agency (ESA), at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Abstract: My research carried out at the ESTEC research center of ESA was framed within the EarthCARE satellite mission. At that early phase of the EarthCare future satellite mission, the requirements for a space-borne high-spectral resolution lidar needed to be defined to be able to measure clouds and aerosols with physical characteristics within a giving range. My main task was the evaluation of measurement accuracies of backscatter and extinction coefficients as well as, the optical depth in clouds. I also used the SBDART radiative transfer model to evaluate the radiative impact of the general characteristics of the measurements and its accuracy.