Charles Gatebe
Chief of Atmospheric Science Branch
Affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)
Branch: Atmospheric Science Branch (SGG)
Email: charles.k.gatebe@nasa.gov
Phone: 650-604-5533
Professional Biography
Dr. Gatebe is the Chief of Atmospheric Science Branch at NASA Ames Research Center.
He received his Bachelors’ degree (B.S. in meteorology, mathematics, and physics) and his Masters (M.S. in meteorology) degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. And his Ph.D. degree in atmospheric physics from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1999.
For a brief period in 1995, he worked as a research meteorologist at the Kenya Meteorological Department and then joined the University of Nairobi from 1995-1999 as a lecturer, where he taught courses in air pollution using nuclear related techniques at the Institute of Nuclear Science. He came to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in 1999 as a Resident Research Associate of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). He later became a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under two cooperative agreements between NASA and University of Maryland, Baltimore County (2001-2011) and USRA (2011-2020).
His research focus is on clouds, aerosols, ecosystem structure and function, albedo, and feedbacks to climate using a well-calibrated, atmospherically corrected and feature-rich airborne dataset (https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=CAR). He has flown on many NASA aircraft missions to validate satellite measurements in southern Africa, US East Coast over the Atlantic Ocean, US West coast over the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, Greenland and Canada. He leads the NASA’s Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR), which is flown aboard NASA P-3B aircraft (https://car.gsfc.nasa.gov), and NASA’s SaSa program, comprised of six minority serving institutions (Howard University, Morgan State, Coppin State, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Hampton University, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore) and three NASA centers (NASA Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and Langley Research Center). SaSa is seeking to offer students access to summer seminars and hands-on learning experiences with airborne science flight programs at NASA.
His work has received many awards including the prestigious World Meteorological Organization Young Scientist Award (2000) and NASA’s Robert H. Goddard Award for Outreach (2013) for leading and founding a spectacularly successful “Maniac” series of talks (https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/maniac/talks) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC).
Education
Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 1999.
MSc. In Meteorology, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1994.
BSc. In Meteorology, Mathematics, and Physics, University of Nairobi, 1990.
Research Interests
on clouds, aerosols, ecosystem structure and function, albedo, and feedbacks to climate
Awards/Honors
2000 — World Meteorological Organization Young Scientist Award
2011 — NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Outstanding Performance Award in Instrumentation, Earth Sciences
2013 — Robert H Goddard award for Outstanding Performance in Outreach for founding the Maniac Talks series. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Select Publications
Gatebe, C. K., Jethva, H., Gautam, R., Poudyal, R., and Varnai, T., A new measurement approach for validating satellite-based above-cloud aerosol optical depth, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 1405–1423, 2021. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1405-2021.
Gatebe, C.K. and M. D. King (2016), Airborne spectral BRDF of various surface types (ocean, vegetation, snow, desert, wetlands, cloud decks, smoke layers) for remote sensing applications, Remote Sensing of Environment, 179, 131-148, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2016.03.029.
Chen, N., Li, W., Gatebe, C. K., Tanikawa, T., Hori, M., Shimada, R., Aoki, T., Stamnes, K. (2018). Neural network cloud mask algorithm based on radiative transfer simulations, RSE 219, 62-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.09.029.
Fan, Y., Li, W., Gatebe, C. K., Jamet, C., Zibordi, G., Schroeder, T., & Stamnes, K. (2017). Atmospheric correction over coastal waters using multilayer neural networks. Remote Sensing of Environment, 199, 218 – 240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.07.016.
Fan, Y., Li, W., Voss, K. J., Gatebe, C. K., & Stamnes, K. (2016). Neural network method to correct bidirectional effects in water-leaving radiance. Appl. Opt., 55, 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.55.000010.
Lin, Z., Li, W., Gatebe, C. K., Poudyal, R., & Stamnes, K. (2016). Radiative transfer simula- tions of the two-dimensional ocean glint reflectance and determination of the sea surface roughness, Applied Optics, 55, 1206–1215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.55.001206.
Gatebe, C. K. Ichoku, C.M., Poudyal, R., Román, M. O., Wilcox, E. 2014: Surface albedo darkening from wildfires in northern sub-Saharan Africa, In: Environmental Research Letters, 9, June 13, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/6/065003.
Román, M.O., Gatebe, C.K., Shuai, Y., Wang, Z., Gao, F., Masek, J.G., He, T., Liang, S., & Schaaf, C.B. (2013). Use of in situ and airborne multiangle data to assess MODIS- and Landsat-based estimates of directional reflectance and surface albedo. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2013.2243457.
Roman, M.O., C. K. Gatebe, C. Schaaf, R. Poudyal, Z. Wang, M. D. King, 2011: Variability in surface BRDF at different spatial scales (30 m–500 m) over a mixed agricultural landscape as retrieved from airborne and satellite spectral measurements, In: Remote Sensing of Environment, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.04.012, 115, 2184-2203.
Gatebe, C. K., Dubovik, O., King, M. D. & Sinyuk, A. (2010) Simultaneous retrieval of aerosol and surface optical properties from combined airborne- and ground-based direct and diffuse radiometric measurements, In: Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 2777–2794.
Gatebe, C. K., King, M. D., Lyapustin, A. I., Arnold, G. T., & Redemann, J. (2005). Airborne spectral measurements of ocean directional reflectance. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 62, 1072–1092.
Gatebe, C. K., J. M. Butler, J. W. Cooper, M. Kowalewski, M. D. King, 2007: Characterization of errors in the use of integrating-sphere systems in the calibration of scanning radiometers, In: Applied Optics, 46(31), 7640–7651.
Gatebe, C. K., M. D. King, S. Platnick, G. T. Arnold, E. F. Vermote, B. Schmid, 2003: Airborne spectral measurements of surface-atmosphere anisotropy for several surfaces and ecosystems over southern Africa, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D13), 8489, doi: 10.1029/2002JD002397.
Press Releases/Websites
- “We’ve got to solve this now.” : https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/we-ve-got-to-solve-this-now
- Toward Greater Diversity in Earth Sciences: NASA’s SaSa: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/toward-greater-diversity-in-earth-sciences-nasa-s-student-airborne-science-activation
Links
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/charles-gatebe-pushing-the-limits-of-curiosity/
https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/person/Charles_Gatebe
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/charles-gatebe-and-his-not-so-maniac-talks