Numerical weather forecasting

Interviewed by
Ronald Doel
Interview date
Location
Middleburg, Virginia
Abstract

Descriptions of other Spilhaus oral history interviews that cover childhood as well as career in education and public service; impressions of graduate education at Massachusetts Institute of Technlogy (MIT), early 1930s; work at Sperry Corporation. Meteorological research at MIT (C.-G. Rossby, C. S. Draper); meteorological work with Technical Services, South African Army, 1935-1936. Return to MIT, 1936; develops bathythermograph; life at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Professorship in Meteorology at New York University; impressions of department. Develops ozone research project; post-World War II involvement in numerical weather forecasting (John Von Neumann). Dean of Institute of Technology at University of Minnesota, 1949-1966; involvement in weapons testing, involvement in United States National Committee of the International Geophysical Year; impressions of committee members and its operations. National Academy of Sciences advisory panels on oceanography and waste management. Personal philosophy.

Interviewed by
Spencer Weart
Interview date
Abstract

Brief overview of the history of numerical general circulation models from about 1950-1970, centering on Smagorinsky's group, including Syukuro Manabe, at the U. S. Weather Bureau, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton. Notes the interactions with weather predictions and climate change concerns, especially carbon dioxide warnings (greenhouse effect).