Farhan Mustafa — Atmospheric Scientist & Independent Consultant

01 / About

I am an Assistant Professor at the African Research Center on Air Quality and Climate (ArcAir), Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco — where I lead research on greenhouse gases, air quality, and atmospheric modeling across Africa.

My doctoral work in China and postdoc in Hong Kong focused on retrieving and improving CO₂ datasets from satellites such as OCO-2, OCO-3, GOSAT, and TROPOMI, and on building deep learning methods to estimate anthropogenic emissions at regional and global scales.

Outside the university, I take on selected consulting projects — helping companies, NGOs, and research groups make sense of Earth-observation data and atmospheric models.

02 / Research

Areas of focus

My research sits at the intersection of satellite remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, and machine learning — applied to questions about air composition, emissions, and climate.

Greenhouse Gases

CO₂, CH₄, and NH₃ from satellites and atmospheric models — at city, country, and continental scales.

Satellite Remote Sensing

OCO-2/3, GOSAT, TROPOMI / Sentinel-5P, MODIS — retrieval, validation, and cross-product comparison.

Atmospheric Modeling

WRF-Chem, GEOS-Chem, CarbonTracker, and Copernicus CAMS — configuration, simulation, and analysis.

Machine Learning

Deep learning to refine model-based datasets and to estimate emissions where direct measurements are scarce.

Air Quality

Long-term satellite, model, and ground-station analyses of NO₂, AOD, CO and Aerosol Index over Morocco and Africa.

Climate & Africa

How climate change manifests over the African continent — extremes, emissions trajectories, and air-quality implications.

Cloud & HPC Workflows

HPC (SLURM), Google Earth Engine, and AWS pipelines for processing planetary-scale Earth-observation datasets.

Capacity Building

Training scientists across Africa through WMO workshops and university modules in atmospheric modeling and remote sensing.

03 / Publications

Selected writing

Eight first-author articles and seventeen co-authored — published in IEEE TGRS, Atmospheric Environment, Atmospheric Research, AMT, and Remote Sensing. A few highlights below.

01

Estimating global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions using satellite observations and machine learning methods

Farhan Mustafa, Ming Xu

Atmospheric Environment · doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2025.121423

2025

02

Improving model-based carbon dioxide datasets using deep learning and satellite observations

Farhan Mustafa, Ming Xu

IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing · doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2025.3556309

2025

03

Comparison of model-derived carbon dioxide datasets with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) observations

Farhan Mustafa, Ming Xu

Atmospheric Research · doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2025.108057

2025

04

Spatiotemporal investigation of near-surface CO₂ and its affecting factors over Asia

Farhan Mustafa, Lingbing Bu, Qin Wang, Muhammad Shahzaman, Muhammad Bilal et al.

IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing · doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2022.3178125

2022

05

Neural-network-based estimation of regional-scale anthropogenic CO₂ emissions using OCO-2 over East and West Asia

Farhan Mustafa, Lingbing Bu, Qin Wang, Na Yao, Muhammad Shahzaman et al.

Atmospheric Measurement Techniques · doi: 10.5194/amt-14-7277-2021

2021

06

Validation of GOSAT and OCO-2 against in-situ aircraft measurements and comparison with CarbonTracker and GEOS-Chem over Qinhuangdao, China

Farhan Mustafa, Huijuan Wang, Lingbing Bu, Qin Wang et al.

Remote Sensing · doi: 10.3390/rs13050899

2021

View full list on Google Scholar →

04 / Funding

Grants & projects

Principal Investigator on greenhouse-gas emissions research funded across three continents — totalling over USD 350K secured, with USD 3M+ in pending proposals.

Funded · 2025—2026

$50,000

Estimating Methane Emissions from the Energy Sector across Africa

RolePrincipal Investigator

FunderClean Air Task Force (CATF), USA

Funded · 2023—2025

¥200,000

Methods to Estimate Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions from Satellite Datasets

RolePrincipal Investigator

FunderTalent Development Bureau, Guangzhou Nansha

Funded · 2023—2025

¥100,000

Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions from Satellite Datasets

RolePrincipal Investigator

FunderGuangzhou Government, China

Funded · 2022—2025

¥570,000

Retrieval Algorithm for Spaceborne Path-Integral Differential Absorption Lidar to Measure CO₂

RoleCollaborator

FunderNational Science Foundation China (NSFC)

Accepted · 2026—2029

$1.1M

Predicting Chemical Emissions from Agricultural Sites using Machine and Deep Learning Models

RolePrincipal Investigator

FunderOCP Group, Morocco

Pending · 2025—2030

$2.0M

Cost-effective Green Ammonia Production, Application, and Environmental Impact Assessment

RoleCollaborator

FunderOCP Group, Morocco

05 / Teaching

Teaching & training

Building atmospheric-science capacity across Africa — through graduate supervision, university modules, and international training workshops.

University modules

2026

EM-ArcAir-1 · Environmental Modeling

Module on atmospheric modeling tools (WRF-Chem, GEOS-Chem, CMAQ) and satellite observations · UM6P

Ongoing

Graduate Supervision

M.Sc. and Ph.D. students working on ammonia, urban CO₂, and emissions over Morocco

International workshops

Oct 2025

Satellite Observations for Air Quality Monitoring

WMO Training Workshop · Benguerir, Morocco

Oct 2025

Atmospheric Composition, Reanalysis & Forecasting Datasets

WMO Training Workshop · Benguerir, Morocco

Dec 2024

Deep Learning to Improve Model-Derived CO₂

AGU Fall Meeting · Washington D.C., USA

Greenhouse Gases

Satellite Remote Sensing

Atmospheric Modeling

Machine Learning

Air Quality

Climate & Africa

Cloud & HPC Workflows

Capacity Building

Estimating global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions using satellite observations and machine learning methods

Improving model-based carbon dioxide datasets using deep learning and satellite observations

Comparison of model-derived carbon dioxide datasets with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) observations

Spatiotemporal investigation of near-surface CO2 and its affecting factors over Asia

Neural-network-based estimation of regional-scale anthropogenic CO2 emissions using OCO-2 over East and West Asia

Validation of GOSAT and OCO-2 against in-situ aircraft measurements and comparison with CarbonTracker and GEOS-Chem over Qinhuangdao, China

Estimating Methane Emissions from the Energy Sector across Africa

Methods to Estimate Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions from Satellite Datasets

Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions from Satellite Datasets

Retrieval Algorithm for Spaceborne Path-Integral Differential Absorption Lidar to Measure CO2

Predicting Chemical Emissions from Agricultural Sites using Machine and Deep Learning Models

Cost-effective Green Ammonia Production, Application, and Environmental Impact Assessment

University modules

International workshops

Beyond academia, I take on independent consulting for groups that need senior atmospheric-science expertise — without the overhead.

Satellite Data Analysis

Atmospheric Modeling

ML for Earth Observation

Emissions & Air-Quality Studies

Scientific Writing & Review

Custom Training & Workshops

Programming

Machine Learning

Atmospheric Models

Geospatial & Cloud

Let’s talk about your project.

Spatiotemporal investigation of near-surface CO₂ and its affecting factors over Asia

Neural-network-based estimation of regional-scale anthropogenic CO₂ emissions using OCO-2 over East and West Asia

Methods to Estimate Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions from Satellite Datasets

Regional-Scale Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions from Satellite Datasets

Retrieval Algorithm for Spaceborne Path-Integral Differential Absorption Lidar to Measure CO₂