Welcome to Kyle Itterly's Graduate School Homepage!
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I am a first year (second semester) atmospheric science graduate student at the University of Albany.
I am working under supervision of Dr. Richard Perez who works in the Atmospheric Science Research Center (ASRC) on a variety of projects involving solar energy.
The project I will be working on for my Master's thesis research involves validating Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) measurements for the ASRC solar radiation model produced and maintained by Dr. Perez and his research team. AOD is a very difficult atmospheric variable to measure and is defined as the measure of extinction of solar radiation by aerosol scattering and absorption. Usually, AOD estimates are obtained via high resolution satellite data such as MODIS, and these measured AOD values are most suspect over land surfaces with high albedo. My work will examine the error in our solar radiation model caused by inaccurate AOD inputs.
I graduated in May 2010 from Plymouth State University and had many great experiences during my 4 years in New Hampshire. I enjoy hiking, snowboarding, golfing and mountain biking. The "culmination" of my undergraduate experience included a 2 week stay atop Mount Washington, NH living with the resident meteorologists and performing a brief research project with a fellow classmate on estimating precipitation type on Mt Washington using thickness data. Some pictures from this experience are above.