After his release from the IDF he began his Ph.D. studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , during which he built his own meteorological model, which successfully explained the typical summer afternoon storms over the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret). Upon finishing his Ph.D. in 1980, he was invited to a post-doctorate at Harvard University. For two years Alpert worked with Richard Lindzen and studied the Indian Monsoon. During his post-doctorate he developed a physical model incorporating feedback from the moist surface.
