Sciences and Exploration Directorate

Robin M Kovach

(SCI. APP. PROGRAMMER)

Robin M Kovach's Contact Card & Information.
Email: robin.m.kovach@nasa.gov
Phone: 301.614.5805
Org Code: 610.1
Address:
NASA/GSFC
Mail Code 610.1
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Employer: SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS INC

Brief Bio


Robin M. Kovach graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology with a Bachelors and a Masters Degree in Ocean Engineering. She worked as a Research Associate at the University of Miami, Rosentiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science from 1997-2001. Here she installed, maintained, and collected data on Oceanographic research. She also worked on an Arabian Sea Atlas, Gulf Stream path variability, an oceanographic and atmospheric archival and retrieval system, and an Arabian Sea Monsoon Study.


In, 2001, she began working at NASA and is a Chief Research Scientist in the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, Ocean Data Assimilation group. Her primary responsibilities are ocean data retrieval, assimilation, monitoring, and analysis. She runs ocean data assimilation experiments and develops and maintains the monitoring suite of diagnostic tools for system testing and evaluation. Robin also maintains the websites for the GMAO Ocean Climate and Seasonal Forecasts. She is actively involved in the initialization, post-processing, and analysis of the Seasonal Climate Forecasts each month.

 

 

Education


M.S., Ocean Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), Melbourne, Florida, 1996
Thesis: Langenbach, R., (maiden), G. Rae, “Fuzzy Logic Docking Control for an Underwater Vehicle,” proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology.
 

B.S., Ocean Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), Melbourne, Florida, 1994

Awards


The GMAO Outstanding Performance Award for “Team effort in preparing the ocean, sea-ice and land initial conditions for the GEOS-5 seasonal predictions and the decadal predictions for AR5”, Jan. 2012


The GMAO/SRT Outstanding Performance Award for “Outstanding Support in Ocean Observation Processing and Analysis in the GMAO”, Dec. 2005.
 

Publications


Refereed

2020. "GEOS-S2S Version 2: The GMAO high resolution coupled model and assimilation system for seasonal prediction." Journal of Geophysical Research 125 (5): [10.1029/2019JD031767] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "Impact of Aquarius and SMAP Satellite Sea Surface Salinity Observations on Coupled El Niño/Southern Oscillation Forecasts." Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 0 (0): [10.1029/2019JC015130] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "The roles of climate change and climate variability in the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season." Scientific Reports 8 [10.1038/s41598-018-34343-5] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "GEOS-5 seasonal forecast system." Climate Dynamics [10.1007/s00382-017-3835-2] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "The 2015/2016 El Nino event in context of the MERRA-2 reanalysis: A comparison of the tropical Pacific with 1982/1983 and 1997/1998." Journal of Climate 30 (13): 4819-4842 [10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0800.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "Steric sea level variability (1993–2010) in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses and objective analyses." Climate Dynamics 1-21 [10.1007/s00382-015-2554-9] [Journal Article/Letter]

2014. "The impact of the assimilation of Aquarius sea surface salinity data in the GEOS ocean data assimilation system." J. Geophys. Res. Oceans 119 (10): 6974-6987 [10.1002/2014JC010006] [Journal Article/Letter]

2008. "Error Covariance Modeling in the GMAO Ocean Ensemble Kalman Filter." Mon. Wea. Rev. 136 (8): 2964-2982 [10.1175/2007MWR2243.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2007. "Comparison and Sensitivity of ODASI Ocean Analyses in the Tropical Pacific." Mon. Wea. Rev. 135 (6): 2242-2264 [10.1175/MWR3405.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

Non-Refereed

2015. "MERRA-2: Initial Evaluation of the Climate." NASA Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation 43 (NASA/TM–2015–10) 139 pp. [Report]