Sciences and Exploration Directorate

Michael (Mike) G Bosilovich

((AST, METEOROLOGICAL STUDIES))

Michael (Mike) G Bosilovich's Contact Card & Information.
Email: michael.g.bosilovich@nasa.gov
Phone: 301.614.6147
Org Code: 610.1
Address:
NASA/GSFC
Mail Code 610.1
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Employer:
NASA

Research Interests


Interests and Experience

Solar System: Earth

Earth's Water and Energy cycles; applied uses of reanalyses regarding: global and regional hydrology and climate variations and extreme weather; planetary boundary layer; land-atmosphere interactions; influence of in situ and remotely sensed observations in reanalysis; Earth system models and the remotely sensed observations needed to improve them; quantification of all branches of the Earth's hydrologic cycles


Global and Regional Water and Energy Cycles

Earth Science: Hydrology / Water Cycle

Water is the key ingredient for life, and energy is what drives weather, climate and change and the environment that our society must thrive. Observing and modeling these processes have improved greatly in recent decades, New observations, their assimilation in reanalyses and improved models will contribute to our understanding and attaining further societal progress.


National Climate Assessment

Earth Science: Applications

As PI for the NASA/GMAO NCA Enabling Tools project, we are working toward increasing demonstrations and utilization of reanalysis data to address sector weather and climate data needs, and bridging research and societal needs for climate information. Initial work has involved temperature and precipitation extreme events and their frequencies, especially using the reanalyses to identify preferred synoptic weather patterns and conditions. We have also developed and guided a historical weather map web page that provides an easy to use interface to make weather maps from MERRA-2. We respond to the needs of the applied user community with expertise and information on the best use of reanalyses, for example, in solar and wind power industries. We also take feedback from applied users to augment the reanalyses output to better serve applied user communities (for example, 50m winds for wind turbine evaluations).


Reanalysis Uncertainty

Earth Science: Climate

Atmospheric reanalyses assimilate numerous observational sources with global models. The resulting state fields are a representation of the Earth's actual weather and climate, yet different reanalyses can produce different results. The assimilated observations and models each have bias and error which translate into uncertainty in the reanalysis fields. Characterizing this uncertainty will help refine the reanalyses and identify to researchers using reanalyses the reliability of the results of their experiments. Such uncertainty estimates for reanalyses are not routinely available.

Current Projects


NEWS Regional Water Cycle Study

Hydrology / Water Cycle

Evaluate and explain the MERRA reanalysis representation of the US regional water cycle. With more understanding, apply to regions with minimal observations, such as Africa (in collaboration with SERVIR).


Reanalysis Synthesis of EOS Observations to support the National Climate Assessment

Applications

Collaborate with NCA to bring new diagnostics, enhanced diagnostics and reanalyses data to bear on issues relating to the ongoing National Climate Assessment. Interact with applied users to allow NASA's data to be better utilized.


Development of Gridded Innovations and Observations supplement to MERRA-2 and future GEOS-5 data products

Development and testing of a gridded data set of assimilated observations for MERRA-2

Positions/Employment


Scientist

NASA/GSFC - Greenbelt, MD

June 2000 - Present

Performing research and process studies on GMAO systems.


Post Docoral Appointment

USRA - Greenbelt, MD

August 1997 - May 2000

Land-Atmosphere studies, and water vapor source/sink simulations working with Siegfried Schubert

Education


5/1997 Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Ph.D. – Atmospheric Science (Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Science)
Dissertation: Numerical Simulation of the 1993 Midwestern Flood

12/1992 Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
MS – Atmospheric Science (Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Science)
Thesis: A Parameterization for the Surface Boundary Layer: Formulation and Verification

5/1990 Millersville University Millersville, PA
BS – Meteorology

Professional Societies


American Meteorological Society

1988 - Present


American Geophysical Union

1995 - Present

Professional Service


2020-present: Co-chair, GSFC Climate and Environmental Health

2020-present: Member: World Climate Research Program Academy Lighthouse

2018-2019: Co-chair, GSFC Climate Applications

2017: Convener: MERRA-2 Applied Users Workshop, GSFC

2017-Present: Member: GEWEX Science Steering Group

2017-Present: WDAC Task Team for Intercomparison of Reanalyses (TIRA)

2012-Present: WCRP Data Advisory Council (WDAC)

2012: Program Chair, 4th WCRP International Conference on Reanalyses

2005-Present: Journal of Hydrometeorology, Associate Editor

2012-2015: EU CORE -CLIMAX Science Advisory Committee member

2009-2013: USCLIVAR Phenomena, Observations and Synthesis panel (co-chair 2011-2013)

2010-2011 WCRP Observations and Analysis Panel

2005-2010 AMS Committee on Hydrology

2002-2010 CEOP Model Working Group Co-chair

2003 January United States delegation, 10th US Japan Workshop on Climate Change

Innumerable program review panels for NASA, NOAA , DoE and NSF

Teaching Experience


Occasional undergraduate summer intern mentor.

Teaching assistant, Purdue University, 1990-1996.

Awards


2019 NASA Honors Group Achievement Award to the MERRA-2 Team

2010 NASA Honors Group Achievement Award to the MERRA Team

2004 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, represents the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers)

NASA Special Act Award: August 2011, August 2007, April 2006, September 2001

NASA Performance Award July 2015, July 2011, July 2010, June 2003, May 2002

January 1999 NASA Outstanding Performance Award (Code 910.3 Contractors)

June 2001 NASA Laboratory for Atmospheres Scientific Research Award

 

Other Professional Information


Publications


Refereed

2024. "Insights into the causes and predictability of the 2022/23 California Flooding." Journal of Climate [10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0696.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Effect of Baseline Period on Quantification of Climate Extremes Over the United States." Geophysical Research Letters 50 (17): [10.1029/2023gl105204] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "CERESMIP: a climate modeling protocol to investigate recent trends in the Earth's Energy Imbalance." Frontiers in Climate 5 [10.3389/fclim.2023.1202161] [Journal Article/Letter]

2022. "Continental Patterns of Bird Migration Linked to Climate Variability." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 103 (2): E536-E547 [10.1175/bams-d-21-0220.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2022. "Seasonal variability in the mechanisms behind the 2020 Siberian heatwaves." Journal of Climate 35 (10): 3075-3090 [https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0432.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "A Dusty Atmospheric River Brings Floods to the Middle East." Geophysical Research Letters 48 (23): [10.1029/2021gl095441] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "Examining Cloud Macrophysical Changes over the Pacific for 2007–2017 Using CALIPSO, CloudSat, and MODIS Observations." Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology [10.1175/jamc-d-20-0226.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "The Role of Analysis Error in the Convergence of Reanalysis Production Streams in MERRA-2." Monthly Weather Review 149 (4): 1041-1054 [10.1175/mwr-d-20-0256.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Histogram Anomaly Time Series: A Compact Graphical Representation of Spatial Time Series Data Sets." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101 (12): E2133-E2137 [10.1175/bams-d-20-0130.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Mechanisms Associated with Daytime and Nighttime Heat Waves over the Contiguous United States." Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 59 (11): 1865-1882 [10.1175/jamc-d-20-0053.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Uncertainties in Ocean Latent Heat Flux Variations over Recent Decades in Satellite-Based Estimates and Reduced Observation Reanalyses." Journal of Climate 33 (19): 8415-8437 [10.1175/jcli-d-19-0954.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Large-Scale Influences on Atmospheric River Induced Extreme Precipitation Events Along the Coast of Washington State." Journal of Hydrometeorology [10.1175/jhm-d-19-0272.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Global Climate." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101 (8): S9-S128 [10.1175/bams-d-20-0104.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Observations for Model Intercomparison Project (Obs4MIPs): status for CMIP6." Geoscientific Model Development 13 (7): 2945-2958 [10.5194/gmd-13-2945-2020] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Recent Arctic Ocean Surface Air Temperatures in Atmospheric Reanalyses and Numerical Simulations." Journal of Climate 33 (10): 4347–4367 [10.1175/jcli-d-19-0703.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "El Niño Related Tropical Land Surface Water and Energy Response in MERRA-2." Journal of Climate 33 (3): 1155–1176 [https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0231.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "North American extreme precipitation events and related Large-Scale Meteorological Patterns: a review of statistical methods, dynamics, modeling, and trends." Climate Dynamics 53 (11): 6835–6875 [10.1007/s00382-019-04958-z] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "FROGS: a daily 1deg x1deg gridded precipitation database of rain gauge, satellite and reanalysis products." Earth System Science Data 11 (3): 1017--1035 [10.5194/essd-11-1017-2019] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "Using AIRS and ARM SGP Clear-Sky Observations to Evaluate Meteorological Reanalyses: A Hyperspectral Radiance Closure Approach." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 123 (20): 11,720-11,734 [10.1029/2018JD028850] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "Advancing Global and Regional Reanalyses." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 99 (8): ES139-ES144 [10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0312.1] [Report]

2018. "The GEWEX Water Vapor Assessment archive of water vapour products from satellite observations and reanalyses." Earth System Science Data 10 (2): 1093--1117 [10.5194/essd-10-1093-2018] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "Enabling Reanalysis Research Using the Collaborative Reanalysis Technical Environment (CREATE)." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 99 (4): 677-687 [10.1175/bams-d-17-0174.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "Verification of Land–Atmosphere Coupling in Forecast Models, Reanalyses, and Land Surface Models Using Flux Site Observations." Journal of Hydrometeorology 19 (2): 375-392 [10.1175/jhm-d-17-0152.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2)." Journal of Climate 30 5419–5454 [10.1175/jcli-d-16-0758.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "The peak structure and future changes of the relationships between extreme precipitation and temperature." Nature Climate Change 7 (4): 268-274 [10.1038/nclimate3239] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "Atmospheric water balance and variability in the MERRA-2 reanalysis." J. Climate 30 (4): 1177-1196 [10.1175/jcli-d-16-0338.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "Large Scale Influences on Summertime Extreme Precipitation in the Northeastern United States." Journal of Hydrometeorology JHM-D-16-0091.1 [10.1175/jhm-d-16-0091.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "Confronting Weather and Climate Models with Observational Data from Soil Moisture Networks over the United States." Journal of Hydrometeorology 17 (4): 1049-1067 [10.1175/jhm-d-15-0196.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "North American extreme temperature events and related large scale meteorological patterns: a review of statistical methods, dynamics, modeling, and trends." Climate Dynamics 46 (3): 1151-1184 [10.1007/s00382-015-2638-6] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "The Observed State of the Energy Budget in the Early Twenty-First Century." Journal of Climate 28 (21): 8319–8346 [10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00556.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "The Observed State of the Water Cycle in the Early Twenty-First Century." Journal of Climate 28 (21): 8289–8318 [10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00555.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "Evaluating observation influence on regional water budgets in reanalyses." J. Climate 28 (9): 3631-3649 [10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00623.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2014. "Consistency of Estimated Global Water Cycle Variations over the Satellite Era." J. Climate 27 (16): 6135-6154 [10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00384.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2014. "Comparing evaporative sources of terrestrial precipitation and their extremes in MERRA using relative entropy." J. Hydrometeor. 15 (1): 102-116 [10.1175/JHM-D-13-053.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "Regional Climate and Variability of NASA MERRA and Recent Reanalyses: U.S. Summertime Precipitation and Temperature." J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim 52 1939-1951 [10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0291.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "Where does the irrigation water go? An estimate of the contribution of irrigation to precipitation using MERRA." J. Hydrometeor. 14 (1): 275-289 [10.1175/JHM-D-12-079.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "Impact of land surface conditions on 2004 North American monsoon in GCM experiments." J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 118 (2): 293-305 [10.1029/2012JD018805] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "Earth System Reanalysis: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities." Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 94 (8): ES110-ES113 [10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00191.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate." Climate Science for Serving Society [Article in Book]

2012. "Multimodel analysis of energy and water fluxes: Intercomparisons between operational analyses, a land surface model, and remote sensing." J. Hydrometeor. 13 (1): 3-26 [10.1175/2011JHM1372.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "Evaluation of the Reanalysis Products from GSFC, NCEP, and ECMWF Using Flux Tower Observations." J. Climate 25 (6): 1916-1944 [10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00004.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "Characterization of Turbulent Latent and Sensible Heat Flux Exchange between the Atmosphere and Ocean in MERRA." J. Climate 25 (3): 821-838 [10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00029.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "Water vapor sources for Yangtze River Valley rainfall: Climatology, variability, and implications for rainfall forecasting." J. Geophys. Res. 117 (D5): D05126 [10.1029/2011JD016902] [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "The Energy Budget of the Polar Atmosphere in MERRA." J. Climate 25 (1): 5-24 [10.1175/2011JCLI4138.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2011. "Global Energy and Water Budgets in MERRA." Journal of Climate 24 (MERRA Special Issue): [10.1175/2011JCLI4175.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2011. "An Assessment of the Uncertainties in Ocean Surface Turbulent Fluxes in 11 Reanalysis, Satellite-Derived, and Combined Global Datasets." Journal of Climate 24 (21): 5469-5493 [10.1175/2011JCLI4223.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2011. "The Effect of Satellite Observing System Changes on MERRA Water and Energy Fluxes." Journal of Climate 24 (20): 5197-5217 [10.1175/2011JCLI4227.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2011. "The Moisture Budget of the Polar Atmosphere in MERRA." J. Climate 24 (11): 2861-2879 [10.1175/2010JCLI4090.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2011. "MERRA: NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications." J. Climate 24 (14): 3624-3648 [10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00015.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2009. "A multimodel analysis for the Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period (CEOP)." J. Hydrometeor. 10 (4): 912-934 [10.1175/2009JHM1090.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2008. "Evaluation of Global Precipitation in Reanalyses." J. Appl. Meteor. and Climat 47 [Journal Article/Letter]

2008. "The Spatiotemporal Structure of Twentieth-Century Climate Variations in Observations and Reanalyses. Part II: Pacific Pan-Decadal Variability." J Climate 21 (11): 2634-2650 [10.1175/2007JCLI2012.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2008. "The Spatiotemporal Structure of Twentieth-Century Climate Variations in Observations and Reanalyses. Part I: Long-Term Trend." J Climate 21 (11): 2611-2633 [10.1175/2007JCLI2011.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2007. "Skin Temperature Analysis and Bias Correction in a Coupled Land-Atmosphere Data Assimilation System." Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 85A [Journal Article/Letter]

2006. "A comparison of MODIS land surface temperature with in situ observations." Geophysical Research Letters 33 (20): L20112 [10.1029/2006gl027519] [Journal Article/Letter]

2006. "Simulation of Water Sources and Precipitation Recycling for the MacKenzie, Mississippi, and Amazon River Basins." J. Hydrometeor. 7 (3): 312-329 [10.1175/JHM501.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2006. "NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications." U.S. CLIVAR Variations 4 (2): 5-8 [Journal Article/Letter]

2006. "U.S. Contributions to the CEOP." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 87 (7): 927-939 [10.1175/BAMS-87-7-927] [Journal Article/Letter]

2005. "Global Changes of the Water Cycle Intensity." J. Climate 18 (10): 1591-1608 [10.1175/JCLI3357.1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2005. "Hurricane forecasting with the high-resolution NASA finite volume general circulation model." Geophys. Res. Lett. 32 (3): L03807 [10.1029/2004GL021513] [Journal Article/Letter]

2004. "Technical Description of the Community Land Model (CLM)." NCAR Technical Note 186 pp [Journal Article/Letter]

2004. "The Global Land Data Assimilation System." BAMS 381-394 [Journal Article/Letter]

2003. "The Common Land Model." Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84 (8): 1013-1023 [10.1175/BAMS-84-8-1013] [Journal Article/Letter]

2003. "Numerical simulation of the large-scale North American monsoon water sources." J. Geophys. Res. 108 (D16): 8614 [10.1029/2002JD003095] [Journal Article/Letter]

2003. "Intercomparison of water and energy budgets for five Mississippi subbasins between ECMWF reanalysis (ERA-40) and NASA Data Assimilation Office fvGCM for 1990–1999." J Geophys Res 108 (D16): 8618 [10.1029/2002JD003127] [Journal Article/Letter]

2002. "On the vertical distribution of local and remote sources of water for precipitation." Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 80 (1-4): 31-41 [10.1007/s007030200012] [Journal Article/Letter]

2002. "On the use and validation of mosaic heterogeneity in atmospheric numerical models." Geophysical Research Letters 29 (8): 15-1-15-4 [10.1029/2001gl013925] [Journal Article/Letter]

2002. "Water Vapor Tracers as Diagnostics of the Regional Hydrologic Cycle." Journal of Hydrometeorology 3 (2): 149-165 [10.1175/1525-7541(2002)003<0149:wvtado>2.0.co;2] [Journal Article/Letter]

2001. "Precipitation Recycling over the Central United States Diagnosed from the GEOS-1 Data Assimilation System." Journal of Hydrometeorology 2 (1): 26-35 [10.1175/1525-7541(2001)002<0026:protcu>2.0.co;2] [Journal Article/Letter]

1999. "River basin hydrology in a global off-line land-surface model." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 104 (D16): 19661-19673 [10.1029/1999jd900346] [Journal Article/Letter]

1999. "Numerical Simulation of the 1993 Midwestern Flood: Land–Atmosphere Interactions." Journal of Climate 12 (5): 1490-1505 [10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<1490:nsotmf>2.0.co;2] [Journal Article/Letter]

1998. "Monthly Simulation of Surface Layer Fluxes and Soil Properties during FIFE." Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 55 (7): 1170-1184 [10.1175/1520-0469(1998)055<1170:msoslf>2.0.co;2] [Journal Article/Letter]

1995. "Formulation and verification of a land surface parameterization for atmospheric numerical models." Boundary Layer Meteorology 73 321-341 [Journal Article/Letter]

Non-Refereed

2021. "File Specification for MERRA-2 Country-Level Surface PM2.5 Monthly Mean Products." GMAO Office Note No. 20 (Version 1.0): 10 [Full Text] [Other]

2017. "An Evaluation of Teleconnections Over the United States in an Ensemble of AMIP Simulations with the MERRA-2 Configuration of the GEOS Atmospheric Model." NASA Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation, NASA/TM-2016-104606 47 68 [Report]

2017. "An Evaluation of Teleconnections Over the United States in an Ensemble of AMIP Simulations with the MERRA-2 Configuration of the GEOS Atmospheric Model." NASA Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation, NASA/TM-2016-104606 47 68 [Report]

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]

2015. "Evaluation of the 7-km GEOS-5 Nature Run." NASA Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation 36 (NASA/TM-2014-104606): [Report]

Brief Bio


A 9th grade Earth science class provided some intial interest in weather as a science, and a perspective that everyone will continue to need weather information. While studying meteorology in college, I became passionate about numerical prediction which applies computers and code to simulate the weather. Presently, I work with reanalyses which attempts to bring out the best of models and observations of weather and climate. I aim to learn about the interactions of the Earth system through observations and models including water and energy pathways in the atmosphere, and how to best use this data in research and applications.