Maura Hagan, NCAR Deputy Director

Maura Hagan was awarded a B.A. in physics from Emmanuel College in 1975, and both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Boston College in 1980 and 1986, respectively. Between 1986 and 1992, she was a staff member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory. She joined the staff of the National Center for Atmospheric Research High Altitude Observatory (NCAR/HAO) in 1992 and was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2003. She became the Director of the NCAR Advanced Study Program in 2005 and the NCAR Deputy Director in 2008.

Her research interests are centered on investigations of the mesosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere with emphases on the coupling between these atmospheric regions and the generation and propagation of tides and planetary waves therein as well as in regions below. She has authored or co-authored more than 85 refereed publications. For several years she served as the project leader for the Coordinated Analysis of the Thermosphere within the National Science Foundation Coupling Energetics and Dynamics (CEDAR) Program. She was associate editor for Geophysical Research Letters (1993-1997), a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Solar Terrestrial Research (1996-2000) and the CEDAR Science Steering Committee (1997-2000).

She served on the Steering Committee of the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric and Related Sciences (SOARS) program (1996-2001), the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere Panel for the Solar and Space Physics Community Assessment and Strategy for the Future, as a Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) Scientific Discipline Representative to the International Council of Scientific Unions (1999-2007), the NASA Geospace Management Operations Working Group (2003-2007), and co-chaired the SCOSTEP Planetary Scale Mesopause Observing System Steering Committee (1998-2002). She is currently a member of the NRC Committee on Solar and Space Physics.

Curriculum Vitae

To read Maura Hagan's curriculum vitae, click here.

Science Highlights

Zhang, X., Hagan, M.E., Forbes, J.M. 2010: Longitudinal variation of tides in the MLT region: 2. Relative effects of solar radiative and latent heating. Journal of Geophysical Research, 115, 10.1029/2009JA014898. [Full text article click here].

Abstract: Part 2 of our study examines the relative importance of radiative heating and latent heating in accounting for vertically propagating tides that impose longitude variability on mesosphere-lower thermosphere (MLT) winds, temperatures, and densities. Our results are based upon numerical simulations using the Global-Scale Wave Model (GSWM) and new tidal heating rates derived from International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) radiative fluxes (see part 1), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) latent heating profiles, and TRMM rainfall rates. Contrary to previous results and general perceptions, we demonstrate that radiative heating is more important than latent heating in accounting for MLT longitude variability due to tides although latent heating causes some large nonmigrating tidal oscillations such as DE3. Through comparison with TIMED SABER temperature measurements, the model results are shown to approximate many observed features of this longitude variability.

Zhang, X., Forbes, J.M., Hagan, M.E. 2010: Longitudinal variation of tides in the MLT region: 1. Tides driven by tropospheric net radiative heating. Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics, 115, 10.1029/2009JA014897. [Full text article click here].

Abstract: This study demonstrates that the diurnal cycle of net radiative heating in the troposphere accounts for considerable longitudinal variability of diurnal and semidiurnal tidal fields in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) (˜80-120 km), whereas previously it was thought that latent heating associated with deep tropical convection is the predominant driver of this variability. The heating rates used for this study are derived from radiative flux products by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and the model employed to estimate the corresponding MLT tides is the Global-Scale Wave Model (GSWM). The radiative flux products by NASA GISS utilize improved International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) cloud climatology and ancillary data sets and were validated by Earth radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) radiative flux (0.2-200.0 microns) measurements at the top of the atmosphere and the Earth surface. Typical magnitudes of tidal temperature longitude variations at, e.g., 95 km or 110 km are 20 ± 5 K for the diurnal tide and 6 ± 2 K for the semidiurnal tide. The computed tides and their longitude variability are of comparable amplitude to those derived from TIMED SABER temperature measurements. Part 2 of this study provides new estimates of tidal forcing by latent heating and assesses the total MLT tidal response to these combined heat sources in comparison to tidal climatologies derived from TIMED SABER measurements.

(For access to Maura Hagan's publications and other NCAR research, please visit the NCAR Library Open Sky web site. OpenSky is the open access institutional repository supporting UCAR, NCAR, and UCP, extending free and open access to our scholarship for the benefit of research and education.)