Suniti Sanghavi

Radiative transfer modeler

JPL/Caltech
Google Scholar OrcidID

Suniti Sanghavi is a remote sensing scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a focus on radiative transfer modeling and inversion algorithm development.

Dr. Sanghavi recognized the need for fast and accurate radiative transfer modeling while carrying out the first Optimal Estimation based inversion of aerosol properties using SCIAMACHY data (Suniti Sanghavi, Platt, and Landgraf 2010; S. Sanghavi et al. 2012). She later expanded her approach to MISR (Diner et al. 2012), leading to state-of-the-art refinements in aerosol electromagnetic scattering simulations (Suniti Sanghavi 2014; Suniti Sanghavi and Stephens 2015) and forward modeling (Suniti Sanghavi and Natraj 2013; S. V. Sanghavi et al. 2013; Suniti Sanghavi, Davis, and Eldering 2014). The resulting framework was used to carry out sensitivity studies and information content analyses of the influence of aerosol and cloud properties on OCO/GOSAT measurements (S. Sanghavi, Lebsock, and Stephens 2015; Suniti Sanghavi et al. 2020). The vSmartMOM modeling framework has also been applied to study the cloudy atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs (Suniti Sanghavi and Shporer 2018; Suniti Sanghavi and West 2019; Suniti Sanghavi, West, and Jiang 2021). Following the GPU adaptation of vSmartMOM (Jeyaram, Sanghavi, and Frankenberg 2022), Dr. Sanghavi’s work led to the development of a GPU accelerated inelastic scattering model (Suniti Sanghavi 2022; Suniti Sanghavi and Frankenberg 2023) that allows the correction of hyperspectral retrievals for biases caused by Raman scattering. Similar corrections due to the hyperspectral effects of canopy radiative transfer are being developed jointly with Dr. Frankenberg.

Education

  • PhD in Environmental Physics | University of Heidelberg, Germany | 2004 - 2008
  • Diploma in Physics | University of Heidelberg, Germany | 1999 - 2003

Professional Experience

  • 2015-present: Data scientist, 298K, JPL
  • 2014-2015: CSU Postdoc, JPL
  • 2010-2013: Caltech Postdoc, JPL
  • 2008-2009: Postdoc at SRON-Netherlands Institute of Space Research\

References

Diner, David J, Rachel A Hodos, Anthony B Davis, Michael J Garay, John V Martonchik, Suniti V Sanghavi, Paul von Allmen, Alexander A Kokhanovsky, and Pengwang Zhai. 2012. “An Optimization Approach for Aerosol Retrievals Using Simulated MISR Radiances.” Atmospheric Research 116: 1–14.
Jeyaram, Rupesh, Suniti Sanghavi, and Christian Frankenberg. 2022. “vSmartMOM. Jl: An Open-Source Julia Package for Atmospheric Radiative Transfer and Remote Sensing Tools.” Journal of Open Source Software 7 (80): 4575.
Sanghavi, S, M Lebsock, and G Stephens. 2015. “Sensitivity Analysis of Polarimetric o 2 a-Band Spectra for Potential Cloud Retrievals Using OCO-2/GOSAT Measurements.” Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 8 (9): 3601–16.
Sanghavi, S, JV Martonchik, J Landgraf, and U Platt. 2012. “Retrieval of the Optical Depth and Vertical Distribution of Particulate Scatterers in the Atmosphere Using O\(_2\) A-and B-Band SCIAMACHY Observations over Kanpur: A Case Study.” Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 5 (5): 1099–119.
Sanghavi, Suniti. 2014. “Revisiting the Fourier Expansion of Mie Scattering Matrices in Generalized Spherical Functions.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 136: 16–27.
———. 2022. “Raman Scattering in the Earth’s Atmosphere, Part i: Optical Properties.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 291: 108328. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2022.108328.
Sanghavi, Suniti V, John V Martonchik, Anthony B Davis, and David J Diner. 2013. “Linearization of a Scalar Matrix Operator Method Radiative Transfer Model with Respect to Aerosol and Surface Properties.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 116: 1–16.
Sanghavi, Suniti, Anthony B Davis, and Annmarie Eldering. 2014. “VSmartMOM: A Vector Matrix Operator Method-Based Radiative Transfer Model Linearized with Respect to Aerosol Properties.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 133: 412–33.
Sanghavi, Suniti, and Christian Frankenberg. 2023. “Raman scattering in the Earth’s atmosphere, Part II: Radiative transfer modeling for remote sensing applications.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 311: 108791.
Sanghavi, Suniti, and Vijay Natraj. 2013. “Using Analytic Derivatives to Assess the Impact of Phase Function Fourier Decomposition Technique on the Accuracy of a Radiative Transfer Model.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 119: 137–49.
Sanghavi, Suniti, Robert Nelson, Christian Frankenberg, and Michael Gunson. 2020. “Aerosols in OCO-2/GOSAT Retrievals of XCO2: An Information Content and Error Analysis.” Remote Sensing of Environment 251: 112053.
Sanghavi, Suniti, Ulrich Platt, and Jochen Landgraf. 2010. “Bichromatic Method for Identification of Clear-Sky Scenarios over Ground Pixel Viewed from Space.” Applied Optics 49 (17): 3282–90.
Sanghavi, Suniti, and Avi Shporer. 2018. “Photopolarimetric Characteristics of Brown Dwarfs. I. Uniform Cloud Decks.” The Astrophysical Journal 866 (1): 28.
Sanghavi, Suniti, and Graeme Stephens. 2015. “Adaptation of the Delta-m and \(\delta\)-Fit Truncation Methods to Vector Radiative Transfer: Effect of Truncation on Radiative Transfer Accuracy.” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 159: 53–68.
Sanghavi, Suniti, and Robert West. 2019. “Spectropolarimetric Characteristics of Brown Dwarfs. II. Uniform Clouds.” The Astrophysical Journal 877 (2): 134.
Sanghavi, Suniti, Robert West, and Jonathan Jiang. 2021. “Cloudy Atmospheres on Directly Imaged Exoplanets: The Need for Accurate Particulate Representation in Photopolarimetric Simulations.” The Astrophysical Journal 907 (1): 30.