Mahesh Mundakkara Kovilakam (Contractor)
Title: Senior Research Scientist
Technical Focus Areas: Chemistry & Dynamics, Climate Science, Atmospheric Composition
Mission/Project: SAGE III/ISS
Study Topics: Stratospheric Aerosols and their impact on climate, Remote sensing, In-situ measurements, Climate Dynamics, Climate Change and Variability
Email: mahesh.kovilakam@nasa.gov
|
About:
Mahesh earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming in 2012 with a degree in Atmospheric Sciences. He completed his Ph.D. under Prof. Terry Deshler with a dissertation titled “On the Accuracy of Stratospheric Aerosol Extinction and Surface Area Derived from In Situ and Remote Measurements.” For the dissertation work, SAGE II aerosol extinction coefficient and surface area density data were used as primary remote measurements for validation purposes. After completing his Ph.D., Mahesh assumed a postdoctoral researcher position at UCR, where he focused on understanding precipitation changes in the southwestern US using CMIP5 models. Before joining Langley in 2017, Mahesh served as a postdoctoral research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). At ORNL, he collaborated on projects involving the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to investigate the impact of aerosols on climate. During his tenure at ORNL, Mahesh gained expertise in working with General Circulation Models (GCMs) and high-performance computing. He conducted and analyzed experiments with CAM4, which were forced with BC distributions modified to match the vertical profile of smoke derived from CALIPSO satellite measurements. In 2017, Mahesh joined the SAGE III/ISS team, contributing to the development of version 2.0 of the Global Space-based Stratospheric Aerosol Climatology (GloSSAC). His contributions spanned the development phases, including version 2.0, and extended to the most recent release, version 2.21, where a revised aerosol-cloud categorization for SAGE III/ISS has been incorporated.
Publication Bibliography:
Select Publications:
- Kovilakam, M., Thomason, L., and Knepp, T.: SAGE III/ISS aerosol/cloud categorization and its impact on GloSSAC, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2709–2731, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2709-2023, 2023.
- Thomason, L. W., Kovilakam, M., Schmidt, A., von Savigny, C., Knepp, T., and Rieger, L.: Evidence for the predictability of changes in the stratospheric aerosol size following volcanic eruptions of diverse magnitudes using space-based instruments, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1143–1158, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1143-2021, 2021.
- Kovilakam, M., Thomason, L., Ernest, N., Rieger, L., Bourassa, A., and Millan, L.: A Global Space-based Stratospheric Aerosol Climatology (Version 2.0): 1979-2018, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2020-56, accepted, 2020.
- Deshler, T., B. Luo., M. Kovilakam., T. Peter., L. Kalnajs (2019) : Retrieval of Aerosol Size Distributions From In Situ Particle Counter Measurements: Instrument Counting Efficiency and Comparisons With Satellite Measurements., Journal of Geophysical Research- Atmospheres, 124, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029558
- Kovilakam, M., S. Mahajan, R. Saravanan, and P. Chang (2017): Climate impacts of CALIPSO-guided corrections to black carbon aerosol vertical distributions in a Global Climate Model, Geophysical Research Letters, 44, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074652
- Kovilakam, M., and S. Mahajan (2015): Black carbon aerosols induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion, Geophysical Research Letters, 42, 4964-4972, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064559
- Kovilakam, M., and T. Deshler (2015): On the accuracy of stratospheric aerosol extinction derived from in situ size distribution measurements and surface area density derived from remote SAGE II and HALOE extinction measurements, Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 120, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD023303
- Allen R.J., J. R. Norris, and M. Kovilakam (2014): In uence of anthropogenic aerosols and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on tropical belt width, Nature Geosci, 7, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2091
Professional Memberships:
- AGU
- AMS
Education/Professional Experience:
- University of Wyoming, WY, USA, Ph.D., Atmospheric Sciences, Aug. 2012 Advisor: Prof. T. Deshler
- Senior Research Scientist, SSAI/NASA Langley Research Center, Sept. 2019-present
- NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Langley Research Center, Sept. 2017-Aug. 2019
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Computational Earth Sciences Group, Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oct. 2014-Jul. 2017, Postdoc
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of California Riverside, Oct. 2012-Sep. 2014
National or International Leadership Positions:
- Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate (SSiRC) steering committee member.
- CMIP7 forcings task team stakeholder.