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More than 30 years of experience in computer programming, data analysis, and…
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Bob Yantosca shared thisMy colleague Eloise Marais is doing important work on the effects of rocket launches and re-entries on the upper atmosphere. We may be killing our own atmopshere while trying to go to Mars!Bob Yantosca shared thisThe 48 #SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets launched so far in 2025 emit as much harmful nitrogen oxides (#NOx) pollution as more than a quarter of a million petrol cars on UK roads. We regulate cars, but not super-emitting rockets. Donate to and share our #GoFundMe campaign to expand our rocket launch emissions tracker (https://lnkd.in/eAS5-nMJ).Donate to Help fund research to track harmful pollution from rockets, organized by Eloise MaraisDonate to Help fund research to track harmful pollution from rockets, organized by Eloise Marais
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Bob Yantosca shared thisGreat work by the IMEO in finding methane leaks!International Methane Emissions Observatory - IMEO
International Methane Emissions Observatory - IMEO
Bob Yantosca shared this🛰️ NEW SCIENCE: By pairing observations from two different satellite instruments, scientists have unlocked new capabilities in detecting and monitoring large #MethaneEmissions. ➡️ The findings will help us identify where large #emissions are coming from even faster — and make sure data gets to the people who can #CutMethane. ℹ️ Typically, scientists use the TROPOMI instrument to identify methane hotspots and very large emissions ➡️ Then, higher-resolution instruments zoom in to get data that our experts use to connect those emissions to their sources. 🟢 In a new study, our research partners at SRON Space Research Organisation Netherlands took advantage of NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's and NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and European Space Agency - ESA's Sentinel-3 SLSTR instruments, one of them flying just ahead of TROPOMI, to quickly identify and track large methane point emitters. 💡 “By combining these satellite systems, we’ve gained access to emissions data that was previously unattainable,” said Itziar Irakulis Loitxate, IMEO’s Remote Sensing Lead. 🟢 Our Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) is using these methods to quickly deliver actionable data to governments and companies to enable methane #mitigation. Making deep methane reductions is the fastest way to slow the current rate of global warming as we decarbonise. More on the new study: https://lnkd.in/epiFKnmm -
Bob Yantosca posted thisIf any of you know of available positions for a Technical Business Analyst, please DM me. One of my contacts is looking for that or a similar position.
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Bob Yantosca reposted thisBob Yantosca reposted thisNumerical weather prediction has improved dramatically over my lifetime! When I was little and living on the east coast sometimes you'd have an ~hour notice for a severe weather event. With Superstorm Sandy we had a week of advance notice. Quite simply, closing NOAA's OAR will result in death and destruction that could be avoided. American taxpayers, YOU, paid for NOAA's models, data and ecosystem of expertise. NOAA is a national treasure we can all feel patriotic about and deserves to thrive. YOU deserve access to NOAA's excellence.
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Bob Yantosca shared thisThis ill-advised plan would be a disaster for Harvard and for many of its researchers. Many research staff (like myself) are the "institutional memory" of their labs, and yanking the funding arbitrarily would decimate research many years to come! This may just all be bluster or grandstanding, and I hope it is. I sincerely pray that it does not come to pass. The jobs and/or appointments of many good people (myself included) who have had nothing to do with fostering an atmosphere of antisemitism on campus will be at risk.Trump task force reviewing billions in Harvard fundingTrump task force reviewing billions in Harvard funding
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Bob Yantosca shared thisPassing along this invitation from MITES, which helps empower underprivileged students in STEM fields. This is a great program.Advancing access and equity in STEM through transformative, pre-college experiencesAdvancing access and equity in STEM through transformative, pre-college experiences
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Bob Yantosca reposted thisBob Yantosca reposted thisAccurately measuring methane emissions from oil and gas is vital to mitigating climate change. But most existing estimates are inaccurate or incomplete. Thanks to a new study by researchers at Stanford University, Kairos Aerospace (Insight M), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Carbon Mapper, the gap — between estimated and actual emissions in key regions where oil and gas is produced — is closing. This research brings us closer to understanding emissions at large U.S. oil and gas basins, which make up 52% of all oil production and 29% of all gas production. Read more about the findings here: https://lnkd.in/gp-y-7wF “This work is exciting because of the sheer magnitude of data analyzed as compared to existing ground-based measurement literature,” said Dr. Daniel Cusworth, Carbon Mapper Project Scientist and co-author on the study. “This large scale allows us to accurately characterize the contributions of low-probability, high consequence emissions that are missing with other measurement systems and existing inventories.” #CutMethane #Methane
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Bob Yantosca reposted thisHarvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Bob Yantosca reposted thisBram Maasakkers studied methane emissions as an environmental science and engineering Ph.D. candidate with Prof. Daniel Jacob at SEAS. Five years after graduating, he's a scientist at the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, where he works on a number of projects that use data from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument, a satellite that can track methane emissions and other gases associated with air pollution and climate change. His group's data has been utilized by a number of international organizations and academic groups, including the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group that he was once part of at SEAS. https://buff.ly/49xIt9J -
Bob Yantosca shared thisOne of the best now belongs to the ages. RIP Mr. Burke!Bob Yantosca shared thisWe are saddened to share that the BC High community has lost one of the giants. Bill Burke ’52 went to eternal rest this week. We mourn the loss of our cherished teacher, mentor, and friend to generations of alumni, faculty, and staff. We are left with our memories of Bill and a sincere appreciation for his presence in our lives - a true man for others. We hold his family in our prayers. AMDG. https://lnkd.in/eUvDqEXb
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Bob Yantosca liked thisBob Yantosca liked thisThe phone call arrived late at night in San Francisco. It was my sister calling from Europe. Before I even answered I knew. My father had died by suicide. Growing up with a father suffering from untreated mental illness was like living in a house where the floorboards were always shifting. It changed my development and my family and I know for a fact I would have been a better child if he had received the help he deserved. It took me years of therapy to find the person I was meant to be and to heal the wreckage inside. This is what I call the ripple effect. When we don't treat the individual we fragment the family and the society around them. But when we heal the person we create better children and a more resilient world. My father was a photographer and a teacher at heart. He needed what I call the three Ps: People, Place, and Purpose. He needed a community and a reason to pick up his camera again. I started Vanna Health as a tribute to my mother Vanna who was totally dedicated to my father during his darkest times. We are building for the fathers like mine but we aren't alone in this journey. I have so much respect for the intrepid entrepreneurs I know in this space. I look at how Amae Health is integrating care for psychosis and schizophrenia. I see the team at firsthand using peer support to reach the most vulnerable and Innovive Health bringing clinical services directly into the home. These are brave people doing great things to make the world better. I don't see these people as competitors. If we are competing to see who can make the world a better place then that is the best kind of competition there is. I welcome more people to join this battle. We won’t end every conflict in the world but we will certainly build a better society. Let’s make the world a place where that phone call never has to be made. Full text below
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Bob Yantosca liked thisBob Yantosca liked this🚨New study out https://lnkd.in/eMDgb6iX 🚨 Mercury is unique among toxic metals in its volatility and long atmospheric lifetime of around 6 months. This means that it can travel globally through the atmosphere and spread to remote ecosystems by deposition 🌧️ 🌳 The atmospheric lifetime is determined by how quickly the long-lived elemental form of mercury gets oxidized into soluble forms. Changes in air pollution will affect the rate of mercury oxidation, but this remains an unexplored factor in the mercury cycle. For the first time, we use a global atmospheric chemistry model to look at how changes in atmospheric composition between the preindustrial era and the present day have affected the transport of mercury 🏭 🌬️ The rise in ozone pollution will impact mercury oxidation, but in opposite directions in different regions. For example, mercury oxidation has accelerated in the Northern Hemisphere tropics and subtropics, but it has slowed down over the Southern Ocean. We explain these competing effects due to ozone's impacts on mercury's oxidants, the bromine atom and the hydroxyl radical. 🧪⚛️ What does this mean for mercury transport? We find that the changes in mercury oxidation lead to more deposition over tropical and subtropical oceans in the Northern Hemisphere, which are where the most important tuna fisheries are located. This suggests that air pollution affects the risk of mercury exposure by funnelling this toxic pollutant into areas where its bioaccumulation most impacts human health. 🎣🍣 Thanks to all the co-authors for contributing to this work! And of course, thanks to the funding for this study, the Horizon Europe #MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship SUMAC project. The project has recently completed, but up next is a Ramón y Cajal fellowship to further explore the mysteries of the mercury cycle. 🤔👨💻
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Bob Yantosca liked thisBob Yantosca liked thisHere's the first look at the cover of my upcoming popular science book on Earth’s climate. The book explores the core science that shapes the world we live in. More to come as we head towards publication in autumn. Princeton University Press
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Bob Yantosca liked thisBob Yantosca liked thisIf you’re like me, you might assume that phytoplankton-derived dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is the dominant source of sulfate aerosols throughout the southern high latitudes. After all, the Southern Ocean is highly productive and surrounds a continent with few other obvious sulfur sources. But sulfur isotopes of sulfate in Antarctic ice cores tell a different story. In our new paper published in GRL today, we find: 🌋 Volcanoes are the dominant source of sulfate for at least the past ~250 years in West Antarctica, which is a region about twice the size of California, Oregon, and Washington combined. 🌐 A model using standard CMIP6 emissions inventories overestimates DMS-derived sulfate and underestimates volcano-derived sulfate across Antarctica. 🦠 Reducing DMS emissions and increasing volcano emissions in the region reconciles the model with observations of 1) sulfur isotopes in ice cores, 2) sulfate deposition in snow and ice, and 3) atmospheric DMS measured from aircraft. The Southern Ocean has received increasing attention because aerosol–cloud interactions remain one of the largest uncertainties in future climate projections. This region allows scientists to study these processes under conditions largely unperturbed by anthropogenic pollution, yet persistent biases remain when comparing modeled and satellite-observed cloud brightness. Improved emissions inventories and sulfur oxidation chemistry may improve our ability to model and understand aerosol-cloud interactions. Paper here: https://lnkd.in/gn2ZpFdu P.S. If you’re coming to AMS in Houston, you can catch my talk on this work on Thursday at 10:45 in the session “Formation and Impacts of Aerosols and CCN: Experiment, Observation, and Modeling Session II”Southern Ocean Sulfate Aerosol Sources Quantified From Sulfur Isotopes in Antarctic Ice CoresSouthern Ocean Sulfate Aerosol Sources Quantified From Sulfur Isotopes in Antarctic Ice Cores
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Bob Yantosca reacted on thisBob Yantosca reacted on thisNew paper! I’m excited to share that our paper, Seasonality and Declining Intensity of Methane Emissions from the Permian and Nearby US Oil and Gas Basins, has been published in Environmental Science & Technology. In this study, we use TROPOMI satellite observations in the Integrated Methane Inversion (IMI) framework to quantify weekly methane emissions from oil and gas production in the US Permian Basin (2019–2023) and the nearby Anadarko, Barnett, Eagle Ford, and Haynesville basins (2022–2023). We find strong seasonal variability in methane emissions, most notably in the Permian, where emissions were on average 50% higher in winter than in summer, corroborating recent results by Lei Hu et al. (2025). Independent methane point-source surveys from GHGSAT and Insight M further confirm this seasonality. The wintertime emission maximum may be driven in part by higher emissions from liquids storage tanks due to reduced separator efficiency in cold conditions, suggesting that improved facility weatherization could substantially reduce emissions. We also observe declining methane intensity in the Permian, with emissions remaining relatively flat year to year despite rapidly increasing production. By the end of 2023, methane intensity in the New Mexico Permian was near the state’s 2% target. In the other basins, declining intensity reflected a combination of decreasing emissions and increasing production. I’m grateful to my co-authors and collaborators for their contributions to this interdisciplinary effort! Daniel Jacob, Lucas Estrada, Nicholas Balasus, James D. East, Drew Pendergrass, Zichong Chen, Melissa Sulprizio, Mark Omara, Ritesh Gautam, Zach Barkley, Felipe Cardoso, Emily Reidy, Harshil Kamdar, Evan Sherwin, Sebastien Biraud, Dylan Jervis, Sudhanshu Pandey, John Worden, Kevin Bowman, J.D. (Bram) Maasakkers, Robert Kleinberg Read the full paper here: https://lnkd.in/eGfkBZmFSeasonality and Declining Intensity of Methane Emissions from the Permian and Nearby US Oil and Gas BasinsSeasonality and Declining Intensity of Methane Emissions from the Permian and Nearby US Oil and Gas Basins
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Bob Yantosca liked thisBob Yantosca liked thisNew paper! I'm excited to share our paper on global human-caused methane emissions, just published in Nature Communications. We estimated high-resolution (up to 25km!) methane emissions by sector for 161 countries in 2023 with multiple inversions of TROPOMI satellite observations using the IMIv2.0. We used national reporting under the Paris Agreements as the prior emissions estimates, making our results a direct comparison to the bottom-up reports. We used data from GHGSat to fill in emissions missing from the prior estimates, along with methane plume locations from IMEO to identify hotspots. We found that: ➡️ 15% of emissions are missing from reporting under the Paris Agreements globally ➡️ For the oil-gas sector, emissions are 32% higher than reporting, and very few countries meet OGCI methane intensity targets of 2% ➡️ Methane intensity of livestock is ~7x larger in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to other regions. Larger than expected livestock emissions there align with recent findings by other researchers ➡️ Hydroelectric reservoirs contribute 6% of the total human caused emissions, but aren't always included in reporting Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 80x more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Reporting under Paris Agreements tells us the how much is coming from different countries and sectors, but reports are challenging to evaluate with observations and therefore uncertain. Our research provides globally consistent, satellite observation-based estimates to compare to these reports. Results are at high enough resolution to distinguish individual countries and individual sectors. They can help national environmental agencies identify sectors where reporting is too high or low, leading to improved bottom-up reporting. This was a big effort, thank you to everyone involved Daniel Jacob, Dylan Jervis, Nicholas Balasus, Lucas Estrada, Sarah Hancock, Melissa Sulprizio, John Steed Thomas, Xiaolin Wang, Zichong Chen, Daniel Varon, John Worden Check out the paper! https://lnkd.in/e3m59E_iWorldwide inference of national methane emissions by inversion of satellite observations with UNFCCC prior estimates - Nature CommunicationsWorldwide inference of national methane emissions by inversion of satellite observations with UNFCCC prior estimates - Nature Communications
Experience & Education
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Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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Courses
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Advanced Powerpoint
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Design Thinking
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Java Programming
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NCL (NCAR Command Language)
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Project Management
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Writing at Work
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Projects
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A Tropospheric Chemistry Module for Earth System Models and Data Assimilation Systems: Application to Chemical Data Assimilation of Satellite Observations in the GEOS DAS
We have embarked on a 5-year program of research to develop, maintain, and apply a state-of-science facility for assimilation of tropospheric multi-constituent data in the GEOS DAS. This facility will use a grid-independent version of the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) incorporated in the DAS, with the capability of simulating oxidant-aerosol chemistry and a wide range of atmospheric species. GEOS-Chem is an open-source global 3-D chemical transport model (CTM) of atmospheric…
We have embarked on a 5-year program of research to develop, maintain, and apply a state-of-science facility for assimilation of tropospheric multi-constituent data in the GEOS DAS. This facility will use a grid-independent version of the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) incorporated in the DAS, with the capability of simulating oxidant-aerosol chemistry and a wide range of atmospheric species. GEOS-Chem is an open-source global 3-D chemical transport model (CTM) of atmospheric composition used by a large worldwide community and actively managed to stay at the forefront of scientific knowledge. The first stage of the project will be to complete an Earth System Model Framework (ESMF)-compliant grid-independent version of GEOS-Chem to serve as chemical operator for the GEOS DAS. The 1-D GEOS-Chem will take as input the arrays of concentrations of constituents for any given horizontal coordinate and time (x, y, t), and solve the chemical evolution equations for these constituents including all local source and sink terms (chemistry, emissions, precipitation scavenging, dry deposition) for any time step. It will return updated concentrations at the end of the time step to serve as input to the transport and assimilation modules of the GEOS DAS. Development of the grid-independent GEOS-Chem and its incorporation in the GEOS DAS are already underway through and existing collaboration between Harvard and GMAO. Once this work is complete we will reconfigure the standard GEOS-Chem CTM to use the grid-independent GEOS-Chem as its chemical operator, by interfacing it with ESMF-compliant versions of the off-line GEOS transport operators. In this manner the same chemical operators will be used in the CTM and in the GEOS DAS, so that future updates to the CTM can be readily incorporated into the DAS. This development will also greatly enhance the computational performance of the GEOS-Chem CTM by enabling Message-Passing Interface (MPI) parallelization.
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Management of the GEOS-Chem Chemical Transport Model and Application to Improve Understanding of Tropospheric Ozone
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Supported by the NASA ACMAP program we shall (1) manage the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) as an open-source model for the scientific community, (2) apply the model to improve our understanding of tropospheric ozone through evaluation of new model developments with NASA satellite, aircraft, and sonde data.
GEOS-Chem is a global 3-D Eulerian model of atmospheric composition driven by GEOS assimilated meteorological data from the NASA GMAO. It is used by over 60 research groups…Supported by the NASA ACMAP program we shall (1) manage the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) as an open-source model for the scientific community, (2) apply the model to improve our understanding of tropospheric ozone through evaluation of new model developments with NASA satellite, aircraft, and sonde data.
GEOS-Chem is a global 3-D Eulerian model of atmospheric composition driven by GEOS assimilated meteorological data from the NASA GMAO. It is used by over 60 research groups worldwide for a very wide range of atmospheric composition problems, and it is in particular a major tool for the interpretation of NASA satellite and aircraft observations
Our application of GEOS-Chem to improve understanding of tropospheric ozone will focus on three major issues: (1) tropospheric bromine chemistry, (2) isoprene chemistry, and (3) variability and atmospheric layering.Other creators -
Honors & Awards
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Group Achievement Award for the ARCTAS mission
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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Pi Lambda Theta
Boston University
Admitted to Pi Lambda Theta, the National Education Honor Society.
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Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award
Boston University
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J. J. Nassau Prize for Outstanding Graduating Senior in Astronomy
Astronomy Deparatment, Case Western Reserve University
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Phi Beta Kappa
Alpha of Ohio Chapter, Case Western Reserve University
Admitted to Phi Beta Kappa, the National Undergraduate Honor Society.
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Case Alumni Association Scholarship
Case Alumni Association
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Abraham Lincoln Fuller Prize for Excellence in the Study of Latin
Case Western Reserve University
Languages
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
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Italian
Native or bilingual proficiency
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