Christa Peters-Lidard | |
---|---|
Born | Christa Dianne Peters |
Alma mater | Virginia Tech, Princeton University |
Scientific career | |
Thesis | The effect of land surface heterogeneity on land-atmosphere interactions (1997) |
Doctoral advisor | Eric F. Wood |
Christa Peters-Lidard is an American hydrologist known for her work on integrating land surface modeling and data assimilation, particularly with remotely sensed measurements of precipitation.
Peters-Lidard grew up in Chesterfield County, Virginia where she was fascinated about nature, learned that she was good at math, and that she liked earth science. [1] As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech she worked on a project on aquifers and groundwater flow at the United States Geological Survey and at that point she realized that she wanted to be an earth scientist at National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). [1]
Peters-Lidard has a B.S. in Geophysics from Virginia Tech (1991). [2] Subsequently she earned an M.A. (1993) [2] and a Ph.D. (1997) [3] in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University. From 1997 to 2001, Peters-Lidar was an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Following this she joined the hydrological sciences branch of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) at the Goddard Space Flight Center. [2] In 2015, Peters-Lidar became the Deputy Director for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics works in the Earth Sciences Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. [2]
From 2011 [4] to 2018 [5] Peters-Lidar was the Chief Editor for the Journal of Hydrometeorology. [6]
Peters-Lidard's graduate work linked rainfall measurements with data from airborne sensors detecting rainfall. [7] She also established a mathematical framework to link land-atmosphere models with remotely-sensed rainfall data, [8] and considered the role of heat being released from soils on modeling energy fluxes. [9] While at Georgia Institute of Technology, she used balloons to make measurements of boundary layers in the atmosphere. [10] Peters-Lidard has had one Ph.D student, Feifei Pan, who estimated the amount of water in soils based on rainfall levels, [11] [12] [13] and examined algorithms used to characterize variability in a region's topography. [14]
Peters-Lidard led the team that built a high performance computing cluster that became NASA's Land Information System software (LIS). [15] [16] LIS was the co-winner of NASA's 2005 software of the year award. [15] [17] LIS allows land surface modeling and data assimilation and, working with Sujay Kumar, Peters-Lidard used this system to quantify soil moisture assimilation. [18] [19]
Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydrologist. Hydrologists are scientists studying earth or environmental science, civil or environmental engineering, and physical geography. Using various analytical methods and scientific techniques, they collect and analyze data to help solve water related problems such as environmental preservation, natural disasters, and water management.
La Niña is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. The name La Niña originates from Spanish for "the girl", by analogy to El Niño, meaning "the boy". In the past, it was also called an anti-El Niño and El Viejo, meaning "the old man."
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El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea temperature is known as El Niño and the cooling phase as La Niña. The Southern Oscillation is the accompanying atmospheric component, coupled with the sea temperature change: El Niño is accompanied by high air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific and La Niña with low air surface pressure there. The two periods last several months each and typically occur every few years with varying intensity per period.
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