Maarten Krol

This postdoctoral project focuses on satellite-based monitoring of shipping emissions , with the goal of detecting and quantifying emissions from individual ships using observations from space. The research sits at the interface of satellite remote sensing , atmospheric chemistry , atmospheric modelling , and inverse methods , and is aimed at improving how ship plumes can be identified and translated into quantitative emission estimates. At Wageningen University & Research, you will work within the Meteorology and Air Quality (MAQ) group , an interdisciplinary environment that combines atmospheric composition, meteorology, modelling, Earth observation, and data analysis. The project builds on an existing Wageningen framework that brings together satellite NO₂ observations , AIS-based ship activity , meteorological information, and atmospheric modelling to identify ship plumes and estimate NOₓ emissions . Your research will involve developing improved plume-detection and interpretation methods for satellite observations, including plume-specific air mass factors and NO₂ profiles; combining satellite, AIS, meteorological, and bottom-up emission data to attribute plumes to individual vessels; examining how plume detectability changes under different wind, boundary-layer, background pollution, turbulence, and photochemical conditions; and applying inverse and data-driven approaches to estimate ship emissions and separate ship-related pollution from other sources. You will also help scale the work to large satellite and AIS datasets, contributing to automated workflows and a database of space-based ship-emission estimates. The position offers room to shape the balance of tasks according to your expertise and interests, while contributing to the AVES II and CAMS2_53c projects and publishing results in international scientific journals. The role is supervised by Prof. Folkert Boersma and Prof. Maarten Krol and is embedded in a collaborative, international research setting with academic, governmental, and other project partners.