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Kevin Bowman

Photo of Kevin Bowman

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 233-200

Pasadena, CA 91109

Phone:

818.354.2995

Fax:

818.354.5148

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Carbon Cycle And Ecosystems

Engineering and Science Directorate Principal

Biography

My research focuses on the processes driving atmospheric composition and their consequences for climate, air quality, and public health. I lead interdisciplinary teams in developing comprehensive observational and modeling systems that integrate satellite measurements with advanced Earth system models through data assimilation and inverse modeling. This includes pioneering multi-instrument retrieval techniques for hyperspectral sensors, yielding high-accuracy estimates of trace gases like ozone and methane. These products feed into chemical data assimilation frameworks to distinguish between local and transported emissions, improving air quality assessments and climate model validation. As Deputy Project Scientist for the US GHG Center and Principal Investigator of NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System Flux (CMS-Flux), I oversee the integration of diverse carbon measurements across the land, ocean, atmosphere, and anthropogenic sectors to attribute CO fluxes to spatially explicit sources and sinks. These systems are critical for understanding carbon-climate interactions, diagnosing responses to variability such as El Ni˜no, and informing global policy assessments like the UNFCCC Global Stocktake. Collectively, my work links observational innovation with quantitative attribution to enhance our capacity to monitor and manage Earth’s changing atmosphere.

Education

  • B.S., Electrical Engineering, Auburn University, (1986-1991)
  • M.S., Electrical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, (1991-1992)
  • Diplôme de Spécialisation en Traitement et Transmission des Informations Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (SUPELEC), Metz, FRANCE
  • Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, (1993-1996)

Professional Experience

  • Deputy Project Scientist, US Greenhouse Gas Center (2023-2026)
  • Project Scientist, TRopospheric Ozone and its Precursors from Earth System Sounding (TROPESS) (2020-Present)
  • Engineering and Science Directorate Principal, (2016-Present)
  • Principal Investigator, Carbon Monitoring System Flux (CMS-Flux) project (2010-Present)
  • Principle Investigator, Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (2014-2020)
  • Associate Research, Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, UCLA
  • Deputy Principle Investigator, Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (2010-2014)
  • Senior Member of Technical Staff, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Algorithm team member: Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (1997-Present)
  • NASA graduate research fellow, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama (1993-1996)
  • Research assistant, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Altanta, Georgia (1993-1994)
  • Research assistant, Matra Marconi Space, Toulouse, France. (1992-1993)

Research Interests

  • Quantifying and understanding the carbon cycle processes that regulate CO2 and CH4 growth rates
  • Assimilation and inverse modeling of atmospheric composition including ozone, carbon monoxide, and CO2 observations into global chemistry and transport models
  • Observational constraints on ozone radiative forcing in chemistry-climate models
  • Observational constraints on climate feedbacks based on hyperspectral measurements
  • Observing system simulation experiments (OSSE) to support mission formulation
  • Conception and development of non-linear optimal estimation and error analysis algorithms for vertical trace gas retrievals.
  • Conception and development of calibration algorithms for Fourier Transform Spectrometers

Selected Awards

  • NASA Group Achievement Award: Strategic Mission Capability Team (2025)
  • NASA Group Achievement-ACT-America (2020)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-FIREX-AQ (2020)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-MUSES Algorithm Team (2020)
  • NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal (2019)
  • NASA JPL Voyager Award (2015)
  • NASA Langley, Henry J. Reid Award (2015)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-Observations for Climate Model Intercomparison (2015)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Team (2014)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award Carbon Monitoring System Flux Pilot Project Team (2013)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-Aura Science Team Proposal Group (2009)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award-TES Level 2 Algorithm Team (2007)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award the Aura Project (2005)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award the Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Instrument and Ground Data System Development Teams (2005)
  • Goddard Space Flight Center Group Achievement Award the Aura Team (2005)

Selected Publications

Selected Presentations:

  1. K. Bowman, “Flux inversion modeling across scales: The Carbon Monitoring System Multiresolution Flux (CMS-MFlux)”, IWGGMS, Takamatsu, Japan, 2025
  2. K. Bowman, L. Ott, “The U.S. GHG Center: working to improve the quality, transparency, and accessibility of GHG information”, NASA CMS meeting, NASA Ames, 2025
  3. K. Bowman, “Flux Inversion Modelling: Assess adaptation of current CEOS practices for G3W applications”, CEOS/CGMS, Harwell, UK, 2025
  4. K. Bowman, “Opportunities and challenges for the use of space-based observations to inform carbon fluxes”, CEOS/CGMS, Harwell, UK, 2025
  5. K. Bowman, invited, “Towards seamless carbon cycle prediction: from data assimilation to emergent constraints”, Goddard Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, 2024
  6. K. Bowman, “A Multiscale Greenhouse Gas System in Support of the US GHG Center”, AGU, Washington DC, 2024
  7. K. Bowman, "The carbon cycle and the global stocktake: Towards seamless carbon prediction", Department of Statistics, Duke University, Duke, NC, 2020
  8. K. Bowman, "The carbon cycle and the global stocktake: Prospects and challenges", Carnegie Institute for Global Ecology, Stanford, 2019
  9. K. Bowman, "The changing landscape of emissions and their impact on air quality and climate", National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, 2019
  10. K. Bowman, K. Bowman, "The global stocktake: A top-down view", Atmospheric Composition Constellation, Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS), Tokyo, 2019
  11. K. Bowman, "Unweaving the webs of carbon", EU Carbon Human Emissions Project, Reading, UK, 2019
  12. K. Bowman, "On the information content of OCO-2", OCO-2 Science Team Meeting, Boulder, CO, 2019
  13. K. Bowman, "A global view: the carbon cycle from space", RECCAP2, Global Carbon Project, Gotemba, Japan, 2019

Publications and Presentations are updated dynamically at Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ptTsW54AAAAJ&hl=en

Publons: https://publons.com/researcher/2971763/kevin-bowman/

Projects

OCO-2 - Orbiting Carbon Observatory
CLARREO
CMS Flux (Carbon Monitoring System Flux)
Geo-Cape
JIFRESSE
TES
TROPESS