Work has included analysis of climate and ocean-climate data, from
both in situ and satellite instruments, analysis of output from climate
models, and development of statistical climate prediction systems. The
NOAA
sea-surface temperature analyses he developed with Richard Reynolds
provide a widely used set of climate products. The improved merged
ocean and land temperature analysis they developed is the NOAA
analysis used for monitoring historical and modern climate temperature
variations. More recent work at CICS
has focused on satellite-based precipitation variations, including
uncertainty estimates and development of improved analysis methods.
Zhang, H.-M., R.W. Reynolds, R. Molinari, K. Arzayus, M. Johnson, and
T.M. Smith, 2008: An integrated global ocean observing system for sea
surface temperatures using satellite and in-situ data:
Research-to-operations. Submitted to Bull. Amer. Met. Soc.
Smith, T. M., M. R. P. Sapiano, and P. A. Arkin, 2008: Historical
Reconstruction of Monthly Oceanic Precipitation (1900-2006), J. Geophys.
Res., 113, D17115, doi:10.1029/2008JD009851.
Smith, T.M., R.W. Reynolds, T.C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore, 2008:
Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature
Analysis (1880-2006). J. Climate, 21, 2283-2296.
Reynolds, R.W., T.M. Smith, C. Liu, D.B. Chelton,
and K.S. Casey, 2007: A Daily 0.25° Blended Analysis for Sea Surface
Temperature. J. Climate (conditionally accepted).
Shen, S. S. P., H. Yin, and T. M. Smith, 2006: An estimate of the
error variance of GHCN monthly surface air temperature data.
J. Climate (in press).
Smith, T. M., P. A. Arkin, J. J. Bates, and G. J. Huffman, 2006:
Estimating bias of satellite-based precipitation estimates. J.
Hydrometeor., 7, 841-856.
Smith, T. M., X. Yin, and A. Gruber, 2006: Variations in annual
global precipitation (1979-2004), based on the global precipitation
climatology project 2.5° analyses. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L06705,
doi:10.1029/2005GL025393.
Zhang, H.-M., R. W. Reynolds, and T. M. Smith, 2006: Adequacy of the in
situ observing system in the satellite era for climate SST. J. Atmos.
Ocean Tech., 23, 107-120.
Smith, T. M., T. C. Peterson, J. Lawrimore, and R. W.
Reynolds, 2005: New surface temperature analyses for climate monitoring.
Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L14712, doi:10.1029/2005GL02342).
Reynolds, R. W., H.-M. Zhang, T. M. Smith, C. Gentemann, and F. Wentz,
2005: Impacts of in situ and additional satellite data on the accuracy
of a sea surface temperature analysis for climate. Int. J. Climatol. 25,
857-864.
Smith, T. M., and R. W. Reynolds, 2005: A global merged
land air and sea surface temperature reconstruction based on historical
observations (1880-1997). J. Climate, 18, 2021-2036.
Dept. of Commerce • NOAA • NESDIS • STAR • Last revised: November 2, 2010
Thomas M. Smith is a physical scientist in the Satellite
Climate Studies Branch, co-located with the Cooperative Institute for
Climate and Satellites (CICS) in College Park, Maryland. Before coming
to STAR he also worked for NOAA
at the National Climatic Data Center from 2000-2007, and at the Climate
Prediction Center from 1991-2000. Education includes a B.A. in
mathematics and M.S. in meteorology, both from Rutgers University, and a
Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Delaware. From 1989-1991
he was a UCAR
post-doctorial fellow at CPC
before joining NOAA.