For the past 25 years, Owen Kelley has worked with remote-sensing precipitation-estimation algorithms at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. As an employee of George Mason University, Dr. Kelley has worked on-site at Goddard's Precipitation Processing System (PPS) within Code 610.2. He performed a variety of duties with his primary duties being the development of visualization software and the analysis of precipitation algorithms to detect anomalies before or after PPS begins production runs of an algorithm. Kelley has also researched hurricane intensification and the observed climatology of convective storms and other kinds of precipitation. His graduate work and professional experience enables him to understand precipitation-estimation algorithms, to examine the statistical properties of their output, and to explain these data products to researchers and the public. Over the years, Kelley has written six journal articles as first author, given talks to technical and non-technical audiences, and been interviewed by the media.
Owen A Kelley
(RESEARCH SCIENTIST)
| Email: | owen.a.kelley@nasa.gov |
| Phone: | 301.614.5245 |
| Org Code: | 619 |
| Address: |
NASA/GSFC Mail Code 619 Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
| Employer: | GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY |
Brief Bio
Positions/Employment
Research Assistant Professor
George Mason University - Fairfax, Virginia (on-site at NASA Goddard)
1998 - Present
Develop visualization software at NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing System (PPS); ad-hoc analysis of science algorithms before and after they are put into production; write algorithms to generate derived products from standard data products; near real-time visualization of significant weather events; respond to questions from researchers about NASA precipitation datasets; mentor newer members of the PPS team; respond to questions from the media about NASA hurricane observations. Primary data sets: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM, 1997-2014) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission (2014-present). Working knowledge of the following languages, protocols, formats, and applications: IDL, JavaScript, C, BASH shell scripts, Python, HDF, NetCDF, GeoTIFF, JSON, CSS, HTML, HTTP, CGI, OGC WMS, CZML, KML, QGIS, Photoshop, and InDesign.
Senior Programmer
George Mason University - Fairfax, Virginia (on-site at NASA Goddard)
1997 - 1998
Working at the NASA Goddard Precipitation Processing System (PPS), which at that time was called the TRMM Science Data and Information Systems (TSDIS). Wrote code to generate Ground Validation (GV) browse images for TRMM data products. Began work on the interactive visualization program for TRMM data now called THOR, the Tool for High Resolution Observation Review.
Education
M.S. Applied Physics, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 1997.
B.A. Liberal Arts, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, 1993.
Selected Publications
Refereed
2014. "Where the least rainfall occurs in the Sahara Desert, the TRMM radar reveals a different pattern of rainfall each season ." Journal of Climate 27 (18): 6919-6939 [10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00145.1] [Journal Article/Letter]
2013. "Adapting an existing visualization application for browser-based deployment: A case study from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission." Computers and Geosciences 51 228-237 [Journal Article/Letter]
2011. "How much tropical cyclone intensification can result from the energy released inside of a convective burst?." Journal of Geophysical Research 116 [10.1029/2011JD015954] [Journal Article/Letter]
2010. "Do the tallest convective cells over the tropical ocean have slow updrafts?." Monthly Weather Review 138 [10.1175/2009MWR3030.1] [Journal Article/Letter]
2005. "Hurricane intensification detected by continuously monitoring tall precipitation in the eyewall." Geophysical Research Letters 32 [L20819 10.1029/2005GL023583] [Journal Article/Letter]
2004. "Tall precipitation cells in tropical cyclone eyewalls are associated with tropical cyclone intensification." Geophysical Research Letters 31 [L24112 10.1029/2004GL021616] [Journal Article/Letter]
2001. "Bimodality in the climatological topside electron and exospheric temperature distributions at Arecibo." Radio Science 36 (2): 311-324 [10.1029/2000rs002435] [Journal Article/Letter]
1997. "Discrete inverse theory for 834-Å ionospheric remote sensing." Radio Science 32 (5): 1973-1984 [10.1029/97rs01028] [Journal Article/Letter]
1997. "Investigation of ionospheric O+remote sensing using the 834-Å airglow." Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 102 (A2): 2441-2456 [10.1029/96ja03314] [Journal Article/Letter]
Talks, Presentations and Posters
Invited
Does the driest part of the Sahara Desert have a rainy season?
November 30, 2014
Brown-bag seminar series, NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, Maryland.
Finding Hurricane Hot Towers
October 10, 2013
A lecture in the annual lecture series cosponsored by the Library of Congress and NASA. Held at Library of Congress in Washington, DC. URL: http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/events/events.html
Other
A Comparison of the GPROF Algorithm Results in the 2A-CLIM and 2A Data Products
2019
E. F. Stocker, O. A. Kelley, D. Randel, C. Kummerow, oral presentation, European Geophysical Union (EGU), Vienna, Austria.
Fire and ice: Intense convective precipitation observed at high latitudes by the GPM satellite’s Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) and the ground-based World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN)
2018
Poster H43F-2487, American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting, Washington, DC.
GIS-friendly data products based on real-time GPM IMERG
2018
Oral presentation made by second author E. F. Stocker, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics of the Environment, Cyprus.
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM): Mission data products, near real-time, and standard research products, availability, latency, and services
2014
E. F. Stocker, O. A. Kelley, and J. E., Stout, oral presentation H13B-1062, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Azimuthal variation in the eyewall’s surface-wind speed may increase maximum potential intensity
2013
Second author: D. Melendez, poster, Interdepartmental Hurricane Forum, Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM), College Park, Maryland.
Visualization of GPM standard products at the Precipitation Processing System (PPS)
2010
Poster H21E-1090, fall meeting, American Geophysical Union (AGU), San Francisco.
NASA precipitation data in virtual globes: Moving beyond 2D representations
2008
Oral presentation and preprint paper 9B4, second author: E. F. Stocker, 24th Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems (IIPS), American Meteorological Society, New Orleans.
The Association of Tall Eyewall Convection with Tropical Cyclone Intensification
2008
PhD dissertation, Michael Summers (advisor), Institute for Computational Sciences and Informatics (CSI), George Mason University.
Severe weather data in Geographic Information Systems: What formatting details make satellite data useful in GIS?
2007
oral presentation A01187, second author: E. F. Stocker, European Geophysical Union (EGU), Vienna.
Convective towers in eyewalls of tropical cyclones observed by the TRMM Precipitation Radar in 1998–2001
2004
Preprint paper P1.43, second author: J. Stout, 20th Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, American Meteorological Society, Seattle.
Rain structure near the eyes of 1999 hurricanes observed by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)
2000
Poster paper H42B-15, American Geophysical Union (AGU) spring meeting, Washington, DC.
Remote sensing O+ with a Chapman layer: Fits to radar data, PIM and IRI profiles, and 834 angstrom limb scans
1996
Poster, coauthors: J. M. Picone, D. J. Melendez-Alvira, R. R. Meier, K. F. Dymond, R. P. McCoy, and R. J. Thomas, Coupled Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR) conference, Boulder, Colorado.
Other Professional Information
SOFTWARE MANUALS PUBLISHED ONLINE BY NASA
- Kelley, O. A., 2022: Using Python to Read HDF5 files from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. 9 pp.
- Kelley, O. A., 2022: The IMERG multi-satellite precipitation estimates reformatted as 2-byte GeoTIFF files for display in a Geographic Information System(GIS). 42 pp.
- Precipitation Processing System, 2022: Introduction to GPM data products. Revised by O. Kelley (ed.), 27 pp., https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
- Kelley, O. A., 2021: User Guide for the Orbit Viewer THOR. 33 pp.
- Cohoon, C., and O. A. Kelley, 2020: Accessing the PPS Production Archive using HTTPS and the arthurhouhttps Server. 9 pp.
- Stocker, E. F., O. A. Kelley, C. Kummerow, G. Huffman, W. Olson, and J. Kwiatkowski, 2015: Summary Information for the GPM Core-satellite Quarter-degree Gridded Text Product. 7 pp. Published online at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/, but superseded in 2020 by the "PPS Gridded Text Product File Specifications" manual.
COMPUTER PROGRAMS DESIGNED, DEVELOPED, AND MAINTAINED
- IMERG GIS. An algorithm to generate a derived-data product. Converts IMERG HDF5 files into GeoTIFF data files that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can read.
- GIBS imagery generation. An algorithm to generate a derived-data product. Converts HDF5 files containing IMERG, GPROF, and microwave brightness temperature into an imagery format that the GIBS data system can ingest and serve to the NASA WorldView data-browsing website.
- THOR. A desktop interactive-visualization application for displaying GPM and TRMM standard data products. Runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux systems.
- THORonline. An in-browser interactive-visualization application for displaying GPM and TRMM standard products from within the PPS data-ordering system called STORM.
- BrowseOnDemand. A program for on-demand generation of browse images for HDF5 products located in the PPS STORM.
- IMERG FANG. Automated image generation and an on-line display application to monitor deviations from climatological-normal precipitation accumulation. FANG stands for "Find Anomaly Near real-time Globally." Used internally at PPS to monitor heavy precipitation events and droughts of public interest.
- HAC temperature time series. Automated image generation and an on-line display application to monitor the temperature of servers within the PPS high-availability cluster (HAC) for near real-time data-product generation.
- GPM Global Viewer. Near real-time image generation and an in-browser display application built on the Cesium JavaScript library. Embedded in the GPM science team website.
Selected Public Outreach
Live On-Camera Interviews
2016 - 2017
- Capital Connection, CNBC Asia. A 3-minute live interview about Hurricane Irma with anchor Nancy Hungerford. The show airs weekdays (11 September 2017).
- Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero, Wall Street Journal Online. Pre-recorded interview. Discussed category-2 Hurricane Matthew that was, at the time of the interview, traveling north near the east coast of Florida (7 October 2016).
- Hurricane Mathew (2016) Facebook Live event on the NASArain Facebook account. Two scientists were interviewed. At the peak of the live broadcast, there were 8,000 simultaneous viewers (7 October 2016).
Interviews for Cable TV Documentaries
2007 - 2014
- Hurricane: The Anatomy, Episode 1: "Predicting the Unpredictable." Originally aired on Eden TV, a cable TV channel in the United Kingdom (2014).
- "Hyper Hurricane." Originally aired on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the Discovery Channel in Canada (2007).
Audio Interviews
2006 - 2012
- Soundings with Alan Stahler, community radio KVMR-FM, Nevada City, California. Discussed the physics of weather, Joanne Simpson’s career, the TRMM satellite, and hurricane physics (27 November 2012).
- "Sandy’s CT Scan, and other Vital Images,” an online video supplement to the Science Friday radio program. Interviewed for a video supplement to the NPR Science Friday radio program that aired on public radio on 2 Nov 2012. Included a 3D visualization of the TRMM satellite's snapshot of Hurricane Sandy's eyewall one day before landfall in New Jersey (2 November 2012).
- Episode #4889, "Cloud tops hint at hurricane’s intensity," Earth & Sky radio program (24 May 2006 and 17 July 2006).
Talks to K-12 Students and Educators
2006 - 2016
- A 20-minute presentation about how NASA measures rain, given to each of the four third-grade classes of Greenbelt Elementary School (October 2016).
- Discussed extreme weather events. GPM Master Teacher Webinar, NASA Goddard. Two dozen middle and high-school teachers participated (10 January 2015).
- Answered questions about the atmosphere during a video conference with Ken Huff’s sixth-grade Earth Science class at Mill Middle School, Williamsville, New York. The event was organized by the NASA Goddard Education Office (31 January 2007).
- A 45-minute talk at NASA Goddard describing my hurricane research to middle school science teachers visiting Goddard for the NASA Explorer Schools Program (11 July and 18 July 2006).
- "Hurricane hot towers, fractal ferns, charged particles, and mysterious mesovortices." A 45-minute talk to 30 high-school students participating in the NASA Goddard 2006 Earth Systems Science Research Symposium (18 January 2006).
Professional Service
Service to the University and NASA
- Provided anonymous peer reviews of papers submitted to the following journals: Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature Geoscience, Computers and Geosciences, Atmospheric Science Letters, Geophysical Research Letters, and Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology (2005-present).
- Website editor, Center for Earth Observing and Space Research (CEOSR), College of Science, George Mason University (2020-present).
- Provided an anonymous peer review of a proposal submitted to the NASA Post-doc Program (NPP) (2016).
- Co-convener along with Dr. George Huffman of the “Meet the Developer” brown-bag session at the second Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) User Workshop, 9 June 2015, University of Maryland, College Park (9 June 2015).
- Took minutes at the October 2009 Precipitation Measurement Missions (PMM) science team meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ghost wrote the 5-page meeting summary published in the NASA Earth Observer newsletter (March-April 2010).
Service to the Community: Used scientific research skills, GIS knowledge, and communication skills in the following ways.
- Self-published a 246-page photo-illustrated field guide to a Maryland forest, A Hundred Wild Things: A Field Guide to Plants in the Greenbelt North Woods (2019). The Greenbelt Museum sells the book as a fundraiser.
- Member, Greenbelt Forest Preserve Advisory Board. Appointed by the Greenbelt City Council (2017-present). Lead author on the Board's report Legal Protections against the Construction of the BWRR Superconducting Maglev within the Greenbelt Forest Preserve (2018).
- Volunteer judge at STEM fairs held at Greenbelt Elementary and Greenbelt Middle School (2013-2021).
Professional Societies
American Meteorological Society
1997 - Present
Awards
NASA Group Achievement Award presented to the GPM Post-launch Team (2015).
Computational and Data Sciences Department Award for for Outstanding Doctoral Work, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia (2008).
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for undergraduates planning on graduate work in science or engineering (1991).