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Maria Hakuba

Photo of Maria Hakuba

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109

Phone:

(818) 393-0142

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Aerosols And Clouds

Biography

Dr. Hakuba is a Research Scientist in the Aerosols and Clouds group and studies the Earth’s energy balance and changes to it using remote sensing, in-situ and modeling data. She is the deputy Principal Investigator for Libera, NASA’s first EVC mission that aims at the seamless continuation of the Earth radiation budget climate data record. She began her career in climate science with a Master's thesis on the orographic impact of Greenland's ice sheet on snow accumulation and atmospheric circulation. During her PhD, she moved her interests towards Earth's energy balance and the exploration of datasets from both surface and space. In particular, she studied the absorption of solar radiation by the atmosphere and the spatial representativeness of surface observations of solar radiation. At JPL, her work spans various aspects of the Earth’s energy and sea level budgets, as well as of the radiative controls on the hydrological cycle and circulations. Most current work focusses on Earth’s energy imbalance, cloud feedbacks, and satellite mission concepts.

Education

  • Ph.D., Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich (2015)
  • M.S., Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich (2011)
  • B.S., Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich (2009)

Professional Experience

  • Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena (2020-present)
    • Deputy PI for Libera
    • Research on Energy and Water cycles
    • Mission concepts
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, affiliated with and physically located at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena (2015-2020)
  • Postdoctoral Research Assistant, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2015)
  • Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2011-2014)
  • Intern at Mauna Loa observatory, Hilo, Hawaii (2009)


Community Service

  • 2020-present: Member of GCOS Atmospheric Observation Panel for Climate
  • 2020-present: Member of the International Radiation Commission
  • 2022-present Vice-chair of the AMS Committee on Atmospheric Radiation
  • 2022-present: Member of the GEWEX Data and Analysis Panel (GDAP)
  • 2021-present: Member of the JPL Earth Science Section DEIA working group
  • 2021: Talks Chair of JPL’s New Researchers’ Support Group (NRSG).

Research Interests

  • Global and regional energy budgets
  • Radiative fluxes and radiative effects
  • Radiative controls on water cycle and large-scale circulation
  • Sea level change and ocean heat storage
  • Earth’s energy imbalance: measurement & assessment


Selected Awards

  • JPL Outstanding Postdoctoral Research Award (2016)
  • Travel award to the AMS conference on Atmospheric Radiation (2014)

Selected Publications

  1. Rugenstein, M., & Hakuba, M. (2023). Connecting hemispheric asymmetries of planetary albedo and surface temperature. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2022GL101802. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101802
  2. Oehri, J., Schaepman-Strub, G., Kim, JS. et al. Vegetation type is an important predictor of the arctic summer land surface energy budget. Nat Commun 13, 6379 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34049-3
  3. Stephens, G. L., Hakuba, M. Z., Kato, S., Gettelman, A., Dufresne, J.-L., Andrews, T., Cole, J., Willen, U., Mauritsen, T. (2022).The changing nature of Earth's reflected sunlight. Proc. R. Soc. A.4782022005320220053. http://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2022.0053
  4. Hakuba, M. Z., Frederikse, T., Landerer, F. W. (2021). Earth's energy imbalance from the ocean perspective (2005–2019). Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL093624. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093624
  5. Gristey, J. J., Su, W., Loeb, N. G., Vonder Haar, T. H., Tornow, F., Schmidt, K. S., Hakuba, M. Z., Pilewskie, P., Russell, J. E. (2021). Shortwave Radiance to Irradiance Conversion for Earth Radiation Budget Satellite Observations: A Review. Remote Sensing, 13(13), 2640. doi:10.3390/rs13132640
  6. Stephens, G. L., Slingo, J. M., Rignot, E., Reager, J. T., Hakuba, M. Z., Durack, P. J., Worden, J., Rocca, R. (2020). Earth's water reservoirs in a changing climate. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 476, 2236, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2019.0458.
  7. Meyssignac, B., Boyer, T., Zhao, Z., Hakuba, M. Z., Landerer, F. W., Stammer, D., ... & Abraham, J. P. (2019). Measuring global ocean heat content to estimate the earth energy imbalance. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, p. 432.
  8. Wild, M., Hakuba, M. Z., Folini, D., Dörig-Ott, P., Schär, C., Kato, S., & Long, C. N. (2019). The cloud-free global energy balance and inferred cloud radiative effects: an assessment based on direct observations and climate models. Climate dynamics, 52(7-8), 4787-481
  9. Hakuba, M. Z., Stephens, G. L., Christophe, B., Nash, A. E., Foulon, B., Bettadpur, S. V., ... & Webb, F. H. (2018). Earth’s Energy Imbalance Measured From Space. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 57(1), 32-45.
  10. Stephens, G. L., Hakuba, M. Z., Webb, M. J., Lebsock, M., Yue, Q., Kahn, B. H., ... & Slingo, J. (2018). Regional intensification of the tropical hydrological cycle during ENSO. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(9), 4361-4370.
  11. Schwarz, M., Folini, D., Hakuba, M. Z., & Wild, M. (2017). Spatial Representativeness of Surface‐Measured Variations of Downward Solar Radiation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 122(24), 13-319.
  12. Wild, M., Hakuba, M. Z., Folini, D., Schär, C., & Long, C. (2017, February). New estimates of the Earth radiation budget under cloud-free conditions and cloud radiative effects. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1810, No. 1, p. 090012). AIP Publishing.
  13. Hakuba, M. Z., Folini, D., Wild, M., Long, C. N., Schaepman-Strub, G., & Stephens, G. L. (2017, February). Cloud effects on atmospheric solar absorption in light of most recent surface and satellite measurements. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1810, No. 1, p. 090003). AIP Publishing.
  14. Sanchez-Lorenzo, A., Enriquez-Alonso, A., Wild, M., Trentmann, J., Vicente-Serrano, S. M., Sanchez-Romero, A., ... & Hakuba, M. Z. (2017). Trends in downward surface solar radiation from satellites and ground observations over Europe during 1983–2010. Remote sensing of environment, 189, 108-117.
  15. Folini, D., Dallafior, T. N., Hakuba, M. Z., & Wild, M. (2017). Trends of surface solar radiation in unforced CMIP5 simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 122(1), 469-484.
  16. Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Schär, C., Müller, G., Folini, D., Schwarz, M., & Hakuba, M. Z. (2017). The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) version 2017: a database for worldwide measured surface energy fluxes. Earth System Science Data, 9(2), 601-613.
  17. Stephens, G.L., M.Z. Hakuba, M. Hawcroft, J. Haywood, A. Behrangi, J. E. Kay, and P. J. Webster (2016), The Curious Nature of the Hemispheric Symmetry of the Earth’s Water and Energy Balances, Current Climate Change Reports, doi:10.1007/s40641-016-0043-9.
  18. Hakuba, M.Z., D. Folini, and M. Wild (2016), On the zonal near constancy of fractional solar absorption in the atmosphere, J. Climate, 29, 3423–3440, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0277.1.
  19. Sanchez-Lorenzo, A., M. Wild, M. Brunetti, J.A. Guijarro, M.Z. Hakuba, J. Calbó, S. Mystakidis, B. Bartok (2015), Reassessment and update of long-term trends in downward surface shortwave radiation over Europe (1939-2012), J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 120, doi: 10.1002/2015JD023321.
  20. Wild, M., D. Folini, M.Z. Hakuba, C. Schär, S. I. Seneviratne, S. Kato, D. Rutan, C. Ammann, E. F. Wood, G. König-Langlo (2014). The energy balance over land and oceans: an assessment based on direct observations and CMIP5 climate models, Climate Dynamics, 44, doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2430-z.
  21. Hakuba, M.Z., D. Folini, A. Sanchez-Lorenzo, M. Wild (2014). Spatial representativeness of ground-based solar radiation measurements – Extension to the full Meteosat disk, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 119, doi:10.1002/2014JD021946.
  22. Hakuba, M.Z., D. Folini, G. Schaepman-Strub, and M. Wild (2014), Solar absorption over Europe from collocated surface and satellite observations, J. Geophys. Res., 119, doi:10.1002/2013JD021421.
  23. Hakuba, M.Z., D. Folini, A. Sanchez-Lorenzo, M. Wild (2013). Spatial representativeness of ground-based solar radiation measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 118, doi:10.1002/jgrd.50673.
  24. Hakuba, M.Z., A. Sanchez-Lorenzo, D. Folini, M. Wild (2013). Testing the homogeneity of short-term surface solar radiation series in Europe, AIP Conference Proceedings, 1531, doi:10.1063/1.4804866.
  25. Hakuba, M.Z., D. Folini, M. Wild, and C. Schär (2012). Impact of Greenland’s topographic height on precipitation and snow accumulation in idealized simulations, J. Geophys. Res., 117 (D9), doi:10.1029/2011JD017052.

Projects

CloudSat
GRACE Follow-On
Libera