Who is jule charney

These linear results were so striking that when Jule sent them to Rossby in Stockholm, J. Namias, then chief of the long-range forecast section of the U. Weather Service on visit to Rossby's institute, wrote immediately to H.

Wexler in Washington, urging that the Weather Bureau contact Charney at once to start operational testing of this linear method. Smagorinsky became involved in this effort. Charney and Eliassen exploited this linear model further by inserting the effect of flow over mountains and the effect of turbulent friction in the air near the ground.

These effects were not of major importance in a forecast for one day, but when the enhanced equations were solved for a stationary perturbation field the resulting pattern was amazingly similar to the time-averaged perturbation field at the five-kilometer level. The manner in which friction was represented in the equations was conceived by Eliassen and has become known as Ekman pumping, referring to the Swedish oceanographer who first presented the mathematics for the effect of the earth's rotation of frictionally driven currents near the surface of the ocean.

Many later studies with more detail in latitude and height—including one by. Charney—have shown that the effect of mountains on large-scale atmospheric flow is not as straightforward as was assumed here by Charney and Eliassen. For example, they used a somewhat narrow zonal channel, which reduces considerably the dispersive aspect of Rossby waves.

But the gods smiled! Since work on von Neumann's computer had progressed more slowly than hoped, Weather Bureau chief F. Von Neumann had developed a technique for using Fourier sums with cyclic input and output of punched cards that allowed the nonlinear vorticity equation to be integrated on the ENIAC, whose internal storage was small.

The first one-day, nonlinear prediction was made in April Platzman, and J. The results of several such forecasts were quickly published in Rossby's journal Tellus. Their overall character was good. Jule sent copies of the forecasts to L.

Richardson in the United Kingdom. Richardson was a committed pacifist who had abandoned his early numerical work on forecasting and, since , had worked on devising mathematical models to understand and prevent war. Richardson asked his wife to judge whether initial a or forecast d maps best resembled the verification maps b.

He reported her verdict to Charney:. Thus d has it on average, but only slightly. This, although not a great success of a popular sort is anyway an enormous scientific advance on the single, and quite wrong, result in which Richardson ended. So far I have only had time to glance at your five papers. To comment on them. The first computations on the Institute computer were made in the summer of , followed closely by models that contained two and then three levels of information in the vertical.

The latter successfully predicted a case of intense winter storm development. This development was an example of the instability that Jule had described in his thesis and was convincing vindication of his graduate work seven years earlier. This was the peak of Jule's interest in personally pursuing numerical weather prediction, although he was to make several theoretical contributions in later years. The meteorology group in particular, the writer used a simple quasi-geostrophic model to simulate the so-called general circulation—the manner in which latitudinal variation of solar heating generates zonal winds and how this, through Jule's instability process, gives rise to cyclones and anticyclones, which in turn modify the zonal winds into belts of westerlies and trade winds.

Besides predicting westerlies and trades, this experiment indicated that the fronts described by Bjerknes were not the source of large-scale storm development, but were created by the developing unstable wave. This showed that Bjerknes' recent emphasis on the wave in the free atmosphere and Jule's fixing upon this wave instead of fronts as the basic instability element was correct.

This type of numerical experiment has blossomed nowadays into elaborate computer simulations of the atmosphere and the oceans , which include detailed radiation calculations, modeling of the hydrological cycle and, in some instances, chemical interactions.

These are used to estimate anthropogenic effects on mean temperature from changes in carbon dioxide or dust from thermonuclear ex-. At its maximum, Jule's meteorology group consisted of Jule plus four meteorologists, several programmers, and a secretary. In addition there was a constant stream of short-term visitors from the United States and abroad, some Jule had invited, and others who requested to see firsthand what these new developments were like.

Jule also took seriously the responsibility to report frequently the group's progress at scientific meetings. The new prediction method spread rapidly, with assistance from the Princeton group.

In August von Neumann organized a meeting to consider operational use of the new method by the weather services of the United States, and by February the computer had been selected for what was known as the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, representing the Weather Bureau, Air Force, and Navy.

The Princeton group assisted in teaching the new methods and computer usage to representatives from the three services. By groups also had started at the Air Force's Cambridge research laboratory, at Rossby 's international institute in Stockholm, and independently, at the British Meteorological Office.

In late , shortly after the general circulation numerical experiments had been digested, von Neumann and Charney encouraged the establishment of a special unit in the Weather Bureau to exploit this technique. Jule's creative interests continued apace. He had some familiarity with the existing theory of large-scale motions in the ocean from his reading of Rossby's papers from the s and from more recent acquaintance with H.

Sverdrup was also on Jule's thesis committee. Jule first applied Eliassen's development of the Ekman theory to show how the effect of wind stress at the top of the ocean should be used as a boundary condition on the quasi-geostrophic interior motions of the ocean. This step brought to fruition the original observations of ice drift that F. Nansen had made at the turn of the century, which had led to Ekman 's theory.

An even more dramatic step was an inertia theory for the Gulf Stream. Stommel and W. Munk had presented theories in which the width of the stream—much narrower than the ocean—depended on a poorly known artificial friction parameter. After much discussion with Stommel, Charney showed how the conservation of potential vorticity in the water mass moving slowly westward in the ocean interior should lead to a narrow boundary current at the western coast of the ocean with geostrophic balance in the streamwise velocity.

A similar theory was published almost simultaneously by G. Jule had now been at the Institute for seven years and was thirty-eight years old. He received a five-year appointment as a member of the Institute at the end of , but was not a permanent member. Von Neumann had become an atomic energy commissioner with heavy duties in Washington and it was clear that the Electronic Computer Project, with its applied flavor, was not to be a permanent feature of the Institute; pure mathematics was the preferred science there.

Oppenheimer was unable to promise a permanent membership to Jule, although both men respected each other and the mutual benefit that the Institute and Jule had on one another. The situation became more urgent when von Neumann developed cancer.

By this time Jule realized the importance to him of contact with experimental and observational work and began inquiries about a university appointment. The universities responded favorably,. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the winner and offered a package deal including the writer and the retention at MIT of E. Starr and Lorenz should be promoted as part of this enhancement of the meteorology department. After his move to MIT Jule could shed much of his responsibility for progress in numerical weather prediction.

Together with W. Malkus in the Mathematics Department he at once organized an informal seminar on geophysical fluid dynamics. This seminar was held fortnightly on late Friday afternoons and gradually involved people from the meteorology, oceanography, geophysics, and applied mathematics groups at MIT, Harvard, and Woods Hole, with frequent participation from Yale, Brown, and the University of Rhode Island.

They were held at a different institution each time and the long automobile trip naturally demanded a social hour for decompression afterwards. This seminar lasted for twenty-two years and was the major means of informal communication between people in New England working on this subject. The fame of his scientific work, however, quickly led to increasing demands for his service as an advisor and committee member. The most permanent of these was an appointment in to the National Academy of Sciences' Commission on Meteorology, a commitment that was to last, in one form or another, for fourteen years.

This commission had been established a year earlier by D. Bronk, with Rossby and L. Berkner as co-chairmen. Malone recalls. Reichelderfer, who hoped for advice on strengthening research in the Weather Bureau, and because Bronk, as a sailor, had been dissatisfied with weather prediction since the hurricane!

In November Jule made a report to the commission that emphasized the presence of three new factors in meteorology—satellites that observe the atmosphere on a global basis, instrumented aircraft and radar that scrutinize the details of small weather systems, and the electronic computer that helps digest the new data. Although not acted on at this time, this idea can be recognized in the later call by Jule for the global atmospheric research program. At about this time, L.

Berkner Rossby had died in the summer of thought of creating a national research center for atmospheric science. Malone recalls that Berkner first charged him and Jule to give a prompt, but considered, reaction. After intense deliberation they returned with a favorable report and then other meteorologists H.

Houghton, for example reviewed the concept. One of the early worries was whether the new center would weaken the university departments or whether the departments would stifle a new center.

Malone and Charney were then charged to visit a significant sample of universities and established research centers for reaction and suggestions. They did so, with positive results. Jule played no role in the organizational meetings that followed, but he was very active in assisting Malone in the more technical meetings that described the activity the new center would conduct above and beyond that done at universities. These initial steps, when supplemented by the organizational drive of the leading department chairmen, led to incorporation of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in March and the formation soon.

He became a councillor of the American Meteorological Society in and was given responsibility for the scientific program at the fortieth anniversary meeting of the society in December He also served as publications commissioner for several years. Jule's outgoing nature and open mind quickly led to friendly acquaintance with many of the leading faculty members and administrators at the Institute and elsewhere in the Boston area.

A year later he had discussions with B. Wiesner science advisor to President Kennedy on the possible peaceful uses of outer space. Jule arranged a meeting with several other meteorologists at which it was suggested that satellites could improve weather forecasting. This met with ready acceptance and was referred to by Kennedy in his State of the Union message and in his September speech to the United Nations.

Resolutions and followed, asking first the World Meteorological Organization and then the International Council of Scientific Unions to develop plans to this end in operational practice and research. Jule recalled that soon after, at a meeting of the American Meteorological Society dealing with international cooperation in meteorology, he was struck with the fact that,. I recall that Jule pondered deeply on the commitment from him that a serious follow-through on this idea would entail.

But having decided that it was a job that he should do, he pursued it with evangelical zeal, almost until the yearlong global observational experiment finally started in December He devoted considerable time in traveling, speaking, devising ways to arrive at meaningful specifications for an observing system, and helping to formulate the first set of plans.

He was active in several working groups, even to the extent of being scientific director for one month of the preliminary GARP tropical observing experiment in Barbados. In the meantime his other research continued at full intensity, as may be judged from his publications. He maintained his educational commitments at MIT in spite of this furious outside activity and even accepted non-trivial appointments to committees for NCAR, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorology Society, and several ad hoc committees for the National Academy of Sciences.

Jule and Lois took sabbatical leaves in the academic year and spent the first part at Cambridge, England. During this period Jule gave considerable thought to how higher frequency gravity wave motions might be generated by nonlinear interactions among Rossby waves, but finally gave up. A loss of vegetation would increase the ground albedo and reflect more solar radiation back to space. The reduction in insolation absorbed by the ground would then decrease the local heating of the air by convection.

This in turn would reduce the mean upward motion of air, resulting in reduced rainfall and a tendency toward further decrease in vegetation. His interest in this topic was stimulated by the drought in the Sahel and by his fond recollection of spring trips to the Mojave Desert with his parents. This was his first visit to Israel, although he had received several invitations.

His parents were not religious and Jule himself seems never to have taken up any part of his ancestors ' faith. The last months of this sabbatical were devoted to leading a summer workshop in Venice. This annual event had been started several years earlier by R. Frassetto of the Institut per lo studio della dynamica delle grandi masse and the oceanographer A. Robinson from Harvard. The drive behind this workshop was to help reduce flooding in Venice; the successful operation of a massive floodgate project would need accurate prediction of water level in the upper Adriatic.

The fluid dynamical model developed by the Harvard group had treated the influence of tides and atmospheric wind and pressure as known forcing functions on the Adriatic. The success of this model shifted the emphasis to predicting the atmospheric wind and pressure.

Jule's workshop. In following years he continued to influence Italian science by sponsoring and working with several Italian students and postgraduates in his National Science Foundation project at MIT. All the above activities illustrate Jule's sense of responsibility as a scientist in matters for which he had some unique insight and power, where he would be expected to lead and for which it was reasonable to expect success. His personal sense of responsibility was broader, however, as most of his friends can attest.

The most ambitious of these efforts began in May after the invasion of Cambodia by U. Jule, Lois, and S. Luria conceived the idea of soliciting money from academic people to support antiwar candidates in the upcoming elections. With the help of A. Chapters were organized at several hundred campuses and enabled UNAF successfully to solicit the equivalent of a day 's salary from thousands of people.

At MIT Jule continued to be a prolific creator of new ideas on the dynamics of atmospheric motion. Space here allows only a short description of the most significant. During Jule's brief stay in Chicago in C. Rossby had emphasized the existence of internal modes of oscillation for Rossby waves, and in Jule had used the vertical component of the group velocity in a resting atmosphere. This continued to occupy part of his thinking; for example, in a letter to D.

Martin at Oxford Jule mentioned his interest in studying the upward propagation of Rossby wave energy. In this interest crystallized into a paper with P. This time the important effect of a west-to-east flow in the undisturbed atmosphere was acknowledged. In this paper and in the Charney-Platzman conversations Jule states that the main goal was to show that this propagation is inhibited i.

In a more direct proof of this was suggested by R. Lindzen and M. The Charney-Drazin paper is, however, most important for two other less dramatic but more tangible results:. Subject to the limitations of WKB analysis, Rossby waves cannot propagate latitudinally or vertically if the wave moves either eastward or too rapidly westward relative to the basic zonal current.

Rossby waves will have no nonlinear effect on the basic state unless there is some non-conservative aspect to their motion. The first of these gave an immediate qualitative explanation of the near absence of Rossby waves in the trade winds of low latitudes and in the westward flow that characterizes the summer stratosphere. Both results have since been extended and amplified in many ways by theoretical and observational scientists, although Jule's attention was quickly attracted again to another aspect of quasi-geostrophic motion.

Stern on an extension of the Rayleigh condition for stability of a plane-parallel fluid flow that the vorticity be monotonic. Stern had extended this to the case of a rotating homogeneous fluid with a free surface. Charney's interest was ignited by this; he and Stern then showed that an internal jet in a rotating atmosphere must be stable if the potential vorticity is monotonic and the temperature at the ground is uniform.

The former condition is usually satisfied in our atmosphere; the latter is not and is therefore an important element for storm formation. Hurricanes engaged Jule's attention ever since his car was damaged by a falling tree in as Hurricane Carol passed over Woods Hole. His first attempts at a numerical model for hurricane motion were unsatisfactory, however. In when A. Eliassen was a visitor to Jule's National Science Foundation project at MIT, he and Jule returned to the subject, this time considering the question of how hurricanes grow into strong vortices.

In his conversations with Platzman Jule recalled that it was K. Ooyama also a visitor at MIT who first pointed out that the simple vertical stability considerations traditionally applied to explain individual cumulus clouds did not apply as a whole to the much larger hurricane cloud system. Jule and Eliassen then directed their approach to recognize that the storm was in a state of near dynamic balance and that it must be the frictionally induced indraft of air near the ocean surface that supplied water vapor and latent heat to the vortex.

As an example of Jule's intensity, I recall that much of the final work on this problem took place in the last part of Eliassen's visit, when Jule arranged for them to go off into the New England forests to avoid distraction. This is the type of motion created in a wind tunnel and in more recent years has been found under windy conditions in the layer of air near the ground.

Several theoreticians had in the meantime considered two-dimensional turbulence as a pure mathematical abstraction there seemed to be no way to create it experimentally!

Charney papers, , bulk Oral history interview with Akio Arakawa, July 17 and Oral history interview with Akira Kasahara, November 2 and 3. Oral history interview with Cecil E. Oral history interview with James Hansen, October 23 and November Oral history interview with Philip Duncan Thompson, December 5. Oral history interview with Syukuro Manabe, March 14 and Oral history interview with Thomas F. AMS membership is not required to submit an award nomination. Nominations are due by 1 May.

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