Current Data Assimilation Projects
An Ensemble Approach to Data Assimilation in the Earth Sciences
National Science Foundation ITR/AP Program

 Faculty Participants:
 

Civil and Environmental Engineering:
          Dennis McLaughlin
          Dara Entekhabi

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science:
          Alan Willsky
          Jacob White

 Earth, Atmospheric,  and Planetary Sciences:
          Carl Wunsch
          Paola Rizzoli
          Kerry Emanuel
          James Hansen

This project is investigating data assimilation issues that are common to oceanography, meteorology, and hydrology.  The objective is to develop a new generation of data assimilation methods that can provide frequent and comprehensive information on the global environment.  Further details are provided in the project summary. 
A New Approach to Hydrologic Data Assimilation
National Science Foundation Hydrology Program

 Principle Investigator:  Prof. Dennis McLaughlin

The objective of this project is to develop a computationally efficient and robust approach to hydrologic data assimilation which combines the best aspects of variational and recursive estimation.   This work is methodological in nature but its overall goal is to advance scientific understanding of large-scale hydrologic processes.  Further details are provided in the project summary. 
An Investigation of Ensemble Methods for Direct Assimilation of Remote Sensing Data
NASA Program

Principle Investigator:  Prof. Dennis McLaughlin
Co-principle Investigator:  Prof. Dara Entekhabi

This project is using ensemble-based data assimilation methods to  estimate soil moisture and related water and energy fluxes from both active and passive microwave measurements.  The goals are to advance understanding of land surface processes and to demonstrate the feasibility of the ensemble appraoch.  Further details are provided in the project summary. 

Copyright 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology