CIRES researcher Clara Draper joined PSL's Forecast and Modeling Development Team this past April. Clara's research is focused on land Data Assimilation (DA), and coupled land/atmosphere DA. At PSL she is working on general development of the ensemble component of the GSI, and integration of a land DA into the GSI to produce a (potentially) strongly coupled land/atmosphere DA system. With this strongly coupled land/atmosphere DA, Clara is working towards improving sub-seasonal atmospheric (and eventually longer time scale) prediction by using low-level atmospheric temperature and relative humidity observations to correct for errors in the modeled land surface state.

Prior to joining PSL, Clara spent six years at the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, in Greenbelt, MD, developing their land data assimilation capabilities, coupling the land and atmospheric DA systems, and overseeing the land component of the reanalysis program. Prior to that she did a Postdoc at CNRM/Météo-France, in Toulouse, France, where tested the use of land DA to improve streamflow forecasts. She has a PhD from the University of Melbourne, an MSc in Meteorology from Monash University, and a BSc / BEng from the University of Melbourne.

Clara is originally from Melbourne, Australia, and still has Vegemite on toast for breakfast every morning. She is an outdoors enthusiast, and spends her spare time exploring the Colorado Front Range by bike and foot.

For more information, visit Clara's staff profile page.

Posted: July 17, 2017