Roy Gordon Grainger (born 19 February 1962) is a New Zealand physicist. He is head of the Earth Observation Data Group in the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Sub-Department at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and a Tutorial Fellow in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

St Hugh's College, Oxford St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a women's college, and accepte ...

Education

Grainger was educated at

Auckland Grammar School Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

before attending the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

to read physics. He gained a

Doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

Atmospheric Physics Within the atmospheric sciences, atmospheric physics is the application of physics to the study of the atmosphere. Atmospheric physicists attempt to model Earth's atmosphere and the atmospheres of the other planets using fluid flow equations, che ...

on the subject of remote sensing of cloud properties, where his supervisor was Stuart Bradley. The title of his doctoral thesis was ''The calculation of cloud parameters from AVHRR data''. He worked for a short time in UV research at the New Zealand Meteorological Service before taking up a post-doctoral position in the Physics Department in Oxford, where his research was focused on measurement of stratospheric aerosols using the ISAMS satellite instrument designed at Oxford. In 1998, he returned to New Zealand to accept a Lectureship at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...

, where he conducted new instrumental work to measure aerosol properties.

Research

Grainger is the Principal Investigator of the Optimal Retrieval of Aerosol and Cloud (ORAC) project,http://proj.badc.rl.ac.uk/orac/wiki/WikiStart ORAC Website which is a community code to optimally estimate aerosol and cloud properties from satellite imagery, and was principally responsible for starting this project. The Earth Observation Data Group which he heads is primarily interested in atmospheric trace gases and clouds (especially with regard to processes which control climate), and conducts satellite studies of atmospheric aerosols.

Personal life

Grainger lives in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, England, and is the great-grandson of Alfred Henry Grainger, after whom

Grainger Falls Grainger Falls is a waterfall in Fiordland, New Zealand. It is a combination of a tiered and fan type waterfall. Grainger Falls was first recorded by Andreas Reischek, an Austrian who explored New Zealand in the 1880s. He named the waterfall after ...

is named.

References

External links

Homepage at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford

Homepage at the Atmospheric Physics Department, Oxford {{DEFAULTSORT:Grainger, Roy Gordon Atmospheric scientists Academics of the University of Oxford Fellows of St Hugh's College, Oxford New Zealand scientists Living people 1962 births People educated at Auckland Grammar School University of Auckland alumni Academic staff of the University of Canterbury People from Thames, New Zealand