David Duncan

Scientist
Research Department, Earth System Assimilation Section, Microwave Radiance Observations Group

Summary:

David Duncan works on maintaining and improving the usage of microwave sounder data assimilated at ECMWF. This includes the monitoring of current microwave sounders, as well as research into and implementation of next generation sensors into the data assimilation system. Increased utilisation of current sensors is also a focus, through greater use of all-sky assimilation and treatment of correlated observation errors.

Professional interests:
  • The global observing system
  • Information content in satellite measurements
  • Radiative transfer in clouds and precipitation
  • Observation errors for satellite sensors
  • Variational methods
Career background:

David earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado working with Professor Chris Kummerow from 2010 to 2017. His PhD thesis was on the limits of one-dimensional variational retrievals of microwave imagers, with a focus on clouds and precipitation from the AMSR2 and GMI sensors. From 2017 to early 2019 David was a postdoctoral researcher at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden working with Professor Patrick Eriksson on clouds and precipitation as seen from active sensors and passive sensors from microwave to sub-millimetre wavelengths. David joined ECMWF in May 2019 as a EUMETSAT research fellow.