From Physics to Climate Science

Abstract

I began my career in climate science in 1974 when I went on Sabbatical from a tenured position in a physics department to National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). I began working on simple climate models that year, and it led a few years later to a senior scientist position at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1978–1986). During this time, colleagues and I continued working on simple models expanding them to two horizontal dimensions and with many applications in paleoclimatology. When the models were forced by white noise the response was remarkably close to those of general circulation models. My group did numerous studies on the sampling errors in estimating empirical orthogonal functions and in the identification, evaluation, and estimation of errors for satellite retrieval of rain. I was the first study scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. I moved to Texas A&M University in 1986 and served as department head from 1995–2003. At A&M I continued working on statistical problems related to Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM) and other applications such as detection of climate signals. I served in many service roles such as on boards, award committees, and as editor‐in‐chief for a journal and an encyclopedia. I also wrote, coauthored, or edited books on paleoclimatology, thermodynamics, climate models, and memoirs. I became Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 2014 and Research Professor until 2020, when I left the payroll.