Dr. Jones's main field of expertise is in the calculation of the propagation of waves in various media, including aspects of wave propagation such as wave interference, refraction, reflection, diffraction, and the frequency shift caused by propagation in time-varying media. His research experience includes radio wave propagation in the ionosphere and acoustic and internal gravity wave propagation in the atmosphere and ocean. He has also had experience in tomographic inversion and computer simulation of tomographic measurements, specifically in relation to underwater acoustic tomography. He generalized the dispersion relation for acoustic-gravity waves in fluids to the baroclinic case (where the surfaces of constant pressure are inclined to the surfaces of constant density). At present, he is investigating the propagation of acoustic-gravity waves in the atmosphere using a ray tracing program he developed.

• B.S. in physics from California Institute of Technology in 1959

• M.S. in physics from University of Colorado in 1963

• Ph.D. in physics from University of Colorado in 1968, Title of dissertation: "A quasi-optical method for LF radiowave propagation in the D-region of the Earth's ionosphere. Part I: Ray theory for lossy media. Part II: Diffraction by the Earth."

1. Physicist with U.S. Dept. of Commerce [first with the National Bureau of Standards (now called NIST), then with the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA, forerunner of NOAA), then with the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, finally with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)] 1961-1993. Research projects worked on during more that 30 years at the Dept. of Commerce include:
   • Discovering that it is possible to use ray tracing to calculate the reflection of electromagnetic waves from a medium having gradients in conductivity (such as LF radio waves in the D region of the ionosphere), by using ray tracing in complex space. ("Ray theory for lossy media," Radio Science, Vol. 5, 793-801, 1970)

   • Developing a ray tracing computer program for calculating the propagation of radio waves through an ionosphere that varies in three dimensions. (Jones, R. M. and J. J. Stephenson, "A versatile three-dimensional ray tracing computer program for radio waves in the ionosphere," OT Report 75-76, 1975)

   • Recognizing that coupling of radio groundwave modes at a shoreline is caused by edge diffraction. ("How edge diffraction couples groundwave modes at a shoreline", Radio Science, Vol. 19, 959-965, 1984)

   • Calculating how variable terrain height and variable roughness length generate internal gravity waves in the atmospheric boundary layer (Hooke, W. H., and R. M. Jones, "Dissipative waves excited by gravity-wave encounters with the stably-stratified planetary boundary layer," J. Atmos. Sci., Vol. 43, 2048-2060, 1986. Jones, R. M., and W. H. Hooke, "The perturbed structure of the neutral atmospheric boundary layer over irregular terrain. Part I. Model Formulation," Boundary Layer Meteorology, Vol. 36, 395-416, 1986. Jones, R. M., and W. H. Hooke, "The perturbed structure of the neutral atmospheric boundary layer over irregular terrain. Part II. Model Calculations," Boundary Layer Meteorology, Vol. 37, 107-127, 1986)

   • Investigating the effect of ionospheric contamination on sea-state backscatter radar measurements (Jones, R. M., T. M. Georges, and J. P. Riley, "Measured ionospheric distortion of HF ground-backscatter spectra," IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. AP-34, 563-568, 1986)

   • Investigating the effect of spatial resolution in the measurements used to initialize a forecast model (Jones, R. M., J. M. Wilczak, and T. M. Georges, "Dependence of forecast limits on the spatial resolution of the measurements used to initialize the forecast model," Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Vol. 2 (New Series), 244-245, 1993)

2. Visiting Scientist at Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie at Lindau/Harz, Germany 1968-1969 and 1979-1980.
   • Collaborated with colleagues on analyzing the D-region partial reflection experiment (Jones, R. M. and H. Kopka, "The sensitivity of D-region partial reflections to irregularity composition," J. Atmos. Terr. Phys., Vol. 40, 723-731, 1978) and later, in collaboration, designed and performed a D-region partial reflection Doppler experiment to detect internal gravity waves (Jones, R. M. and R. N. Grubb, "D-region partial reflection Doppler measurements with the NOAA/MPAE digital HF radar. Max-Planck-Institut Für Aeronomie. Report No. MPAE-W-02-80-20, 1980)

3. Research Associate at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (University of Colorado/NOAA) 1993-present. Research projects include:
   • Developing non-perturbative methods for vertical-slice ocean acoustic tomography inversion (Jones, R. M., E. C. Shang, and T. M. Georges, "Non perturbative modal tomography inversion -Part I: Theory," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 94, 2296-2302, 1993. Jones, R. M., and T. M. Georges, "Nonperturbative ocean acoustic tomography inversion," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 96, 439-451, 1994. Jones, R. M., B. M. Howe, J. A. Mercer, R. C. Spindel, and T. M. Georges, "Nonperturbative ocean acoustic tomography inversion of 1000-km pulse propagation in the Pacific Ocean," J. Acous. Soc. Am., Vol. 96, 3054-3063, 1994. Shang, E. C., Y. Y. Wang, R. M. Jones, and T. M. Georges, "Nonperturbative modal tomography inversion. Part II. Numerical simulation," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 98, 560-569, 1995)

   • Investigating the feasibility of determining Brunt-Vaisala frequency profiles using measurements of the ocean surface ("On using ambient internal waves to monitor Brunt-Vaisala frequency," J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 100(C6), 11,005-11,011, 1995)

   • Generalizing the dispersion relation for acoustic-gravity waves in fluids to the baroclinic case ("The dispersion relation for internal acoustic-gravity waves in a baroclinic fluid," Physics of Fluids, Vol. 13, No. 5, 1274-1280, May 2001; "A general dispersion relation for internal gravity waves in the atmosphere or ocean, including baroclinicity, vorticity, and rate of strain," J. Geophys. Res., 110, D22106, doi:10.1029/2004JD005654, November 2005; "Minimum and maximum propagation frequencies for internal gravity waves," J. Geophys. Res., 111, D06109, doi:10.1029/2005JD006189, 2006).

   • Investigating the propagation of acoustic-gravity waves in the atmosphere using a ray tracing program (Bedard, Alfred J. Jr., and R. Michael Jones, "Infrasonic ray tracing applied to mesoscale atmospheric structures: Refraction by hurricanes," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 134 (5), November 2013, 3446-3451, doi:10.1121/1.4823802).

• Journal publications: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/journal.html

• Conference proceedings: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/proc.html

• Book chapters: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/chap.html

• Papers presented at conferences: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/conf.html

• Reports: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/reports.html

• Complete publication list: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/all.html

• Selected publications by subject: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/pubs/by_subject.html

e-mail: Michael.Jones@Colorado.edu

home page: http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/

The URL of this web site is http://cires.colorado.edu/~mjones/vita.html, and was last updated 30 September 2013.