[ES_JOBS_NET] ORISE Postdoctoral Fellowship, US EPA Office or Research and Development

[Bash, Jesse]

A research opportunity is currently available at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development (ORD), National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL), Computational Exposure Division (CED) located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.



The Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system (CMAQ; https://www.epa.gov/cmaq) estimates atmospheric concentrations and deposition for numerous chemicals, including ozone, PM2.5 and its constituents, and deposition of important nitrogen and sulfur species CMAQ deposition values are used by EPA's EnviroAtlas and Critical Loads Data Mapper, NADP's Total Deposition maps, and to support many nutrient assessments included those for the Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River Basin, Tampa Bay, and the Nooksack Fraser Transboundary region. Concentration values from CMAQ are also widely used to assess the benefits of emission reductions on human health (https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/phase.htm).  Several multi-year simulations using the CMAQ model have been generated incrementally over the past several years using the best models and input data available at the time, Zhang et al. 2019.  As a result, these decadal runs are comprised of simulations made with differing model versions, input data and methodologies. EPA is in the process of updating these simulations for 2002 - 2018 and has a need to develop consistent emissions inventories across years and for all sectors (e.g., stationary and non-stationary, on-road/off-road vehicles, wildland and prescribed fires, biogenic sources, dust).

The focus of this research opportunity will be on particular emission sectors or methodologies, and to participate with a team of scientists and regulators, to offer a broad perspective of environmental management.

This project leverages the state-of-the-art components of the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE), and Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling systems to develop a consistent set of methodologies to estimate US emissions over a period of large reductions, from 2002 to 2018, for use in CMAQ model simulations at multiple scales. This research will leverage recent developments in the latest National Emissions Inventory (NIE https://www.epa.gov/air-emissions-inventories/national-emissions-inventory-nei) to develop emissions from 2002 to 2018 using historical activity, satellite and observational data.

There will be opportunities to develop methodology for historical or projected emission sectors, e.g. wild land fires, agricultural, etc., depending on the candidate's experience and interest.

Under the guidance of a mentor, the participant will be involved in the following research activites:

  *   collaborating with an extensive team of atmospheric science and air quality experts
  *   developing skills for evaluating and making improvements to critical emissions and air quality models
  *   publishing novel environmental science research on a topic of high interest to the U.S. EPA and the wider environmental community

The research participant will learn how to run, analyze, and interpret highly detailed emissions and air quality model data, and may, as their interest dictates, gain experience with other analysis tools (e.g. the Remote Sensing Information Gateway; RSIG; https://www.epa.gov/hesc/remote-sensing-information-gateway).



The initial appointment is for one year, but may be renewed upon recommendation of EPA and is contingent on the availability of funds.



Application deadline: 10/29/2019 3:00:00 PM Eastern Time Zone

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.ucar.edu/pipermail/es_jobs_net/attachments/20190918/c77bf3dc/attachment-0001.html>