Professor Christopher K.R.T. Jones — Recipient of the 2020 MPE Prize
Professor Chris Jones is the Bill Guthridge Distinguished Professor in Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN). The 2020 MPE Prize recognizes Professor Jones for his many significant contributions to climate science and the mathematics of planet Earth.
Category Archives: Meteorology
Numerical Weather Prediction – A Real-Life Application at the Intersection of Mathematics and Meteorology
In the daily operation of weather forecasts, powerful supercomputers are used to predict the weather by solving mathematical equations that model the atmosphere and oceans. Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Weather
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Wimpy Hurricane Season a Surprise — And a Puzzle for Statisticians
It was a hurricane season almost without hurricanes. There were just two, Humberto and Ingrid, and both were relatively wimpy, Category 1 storms. That made the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which ended Saturday, the least active in more than 30 years — for reasons that remain puzzling. Continue reading
Posted in Atmosphere, Extreme Events, Meteorology, Statistics
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Plowing Fields of Data
The Climate Corporation plows through huge amounts of data in order to price the crop insurance it sells to farmers. Continue reading
Posted in Data, Extreme Events, Weather
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Controlling Lightning?
Half-way between chemistry and physics, the exploration of applications of ultrafast laser pulses is a very promising research topic with many potential applications, including meteorology and climate. Continue reading
Posted in Weather, Workshop Announcement
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Statistics of Extreme Events
The floods that occurred earlier this month in Colorado remind us once again of the increasing talk about extreme weather events. Continue reading
Posted in Climate, Extreme Events, Statistics, Weather
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Math for Weather, Bacteria, Aircraft
Interested in the role of mathematics in predicting the weather or how bacteria adapt or designing aircraft? Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Mathematics, Weather
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Extreme Events
Weather extremes capture the public’s attention and are often used as arguments in the debate about climate change. The concern that extreme events may be changing in frequency and intensity as a result of human influences on climate is real, but the notion of extreme events depends to a large degree on the system under consideration, including its vulnerability, resiliency, and capacity for adaptation and mitigation. Continue reading
Posted in Extreme Events, Probability, Statistics, Weather
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Fire Season
“It’s fire season in the forests and wildlands of America.” So began an article by Barry Cipra (“Fighting Fire with Data’). I recalled this article after hearing about the tragic events in the forest fires in Arizona earlier this week, Continue reading
Posted in Data Visualization, Meteorology, Natural Disasters, Weather
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DIMACS/CCICADA Collaboration on REU and Other Sustainability Projects
The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) and the Command Control Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), both based at Rutgers University, have collaborated on some recent activities to enhance the summer experience for several undergraduate students participating in the DIMACS/CCICADA Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. DIMACS and CCICADA recently co-hosted a workshop on Science and Technology Innovations in Hurricane Sandy Research. Continue reading
Posted in Astrophysics, Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Biology, Biosphere, Carbon Cycle, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Modeling, Climate System, Complex Systems, Computational Science, Conference, Conference Announcement, Conference Report, Cryosphere, Data, Data Assimilation, Data Visualization, Dimension Reduction, Disease Modeling, Dynamical Systems, Ecology, Economics, Energy, Epidemiology, Evolution, Extreme Events, Finance, General, Geophysics, Imaging, Inverse Problems, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Meteorology, Natural Disasters, Networks, Ocean, Optimization, Paleoclimate, Patterns, Political Systems, Probability, Public Event, Public Health, Renewable Energy, Resource Management, Risk Analysis, Social Systems, Statistics, Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Tipping Phenomena, Transportation, Uncertainty Quantification, Weather, Workshop Announcement, Workshop Report
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SAMSI Undergraduate Workshop — Predicting the 2013 Hurricane Season Using Real Data
During the week of May 13, 2013, thirty-four students from around the United States attended the Statistical and Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) Undergraduate Modeling Workshop. Continue reading
Posted in Natural Disasters, Statistics, Weather, Workshop Report
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2013 SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems
The 2013 SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems (DS13) will be held at the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Snowbird, Utah, May 19-23. Continue reading
Posted in Climate, Conference Announcement, Energy, Mathematics, Sustainability, Weather
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Arctic Sea Ice and Cold Weather
Could the cold weather experienced in northern Eurasia this winter be related to the decrease in Arctic sea ice? This question is currently being debated in the media in Europe. This post shows some weather maps and links to several relevant blogs and articles. Continue reading
Posted in Cryosphere, General, Weather
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Extreme Weather Event
It was unusually warm and windy for early April. We piled into the toasty lecture hall with drinks and sandwich wraps in hand. Dr. Smith, with his shock of white hair and the thin frame of a marathon runner, shed his sport jacket as he recounted the 2003 European heat wave. Continue reading
Posted in Climate, General, Statistics, Weather
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A View of Prediction of the Atmosphere
This morning I heard a lecture by Rick Anthes, president emeritus of UCAR, former director of NCAR. His talk was entitled “Butterflies and Demons,” and the subject was predictability of weather and climate. He was a witness to, and participant in the development of numerical weather prediction in the form it exists today at weather centers worldwide. It was a particularly interesting and provocative talk.
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Posted in Atmosphere, Meteorology
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Chaos in an Atmosphere Hanging on a Wall
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the 1963 publication of Ed Lorenz’s groundbreaking paper, “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow,” in the Journal of Atmospheric Science. This seminal work, now cited more than 11,000 times, inspired a generation of mathematicians and physicists to embrace the nonlinearity governing our complex world. Continue reading
Posted in Climate, Mathematics, Meteorology
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Atmospheric waves and the organization of tropical weather
Though waves of one sort or another are a ubiquitous part of our daily experience, we have to get on with our lives, and therefore tend not to think of the wavelike nature of daily phenomena. Those fortunate among us who can escape to the shore on a hot August week can then take the time to observe the sea and the waves she sends us. Continue reading
Posted in Atmosphere, Meteorology, Ocean
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Report on the Workshop “Stochastics in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: Mathematical foundations and physical underpinnings”
Last week a workshop was held at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) in Palo Alto, California, around the theme of stochastic PDEs and applications in climate and weather modeling: “Stochastic in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: Mathematical foundations and physical underpinnings.” The workshop brought together a lively mix of specialists in climate modeling and weather prediction alongside experts in the fields of deterministic and stochastic partial differential equations. Continue reading
