Contact Info

1225 W. Dayton Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Phone: (608) 262-2828
Fax: (608) 262-0166
Email: aos@aos.wisc.edu
Chair: Gregory Tripoli

 
  UW-AOS Alumni Group
  @UW_AOS on Twitter
  UW-AOS on Linkedin

Do you have an event or story that you'd like to see highlighted on the UW-AOS web site? Please contact
web at aos.wisc.edu

Welcome!

Thank you very much for visiting our site, and a warm welcome from our department! Over the last 60 years, we have grown into one of the leading departments in our field of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. We have strong graduate and undergraduate programs which are nationally recognized. We pursue research with a combination of theory, modeling, and diagnostic studies. We support this work with a foundation of first-year graduate core courses, and an appealing range of electives for both graduate and undergraduate students. (more...)

1965 AOS Graduate, James McFadden, Finalist for the 2016 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals.

photo courtesy of the Partnership for Public Service.

Each year, the Partnership for Public Service pays tribute to America's dedicated federal workforce through the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals program. In early May, the Partnership announced the 32 finalists for 2016, and are pleased to share that James McFadden, the longest-serving hurricane hunter for NOAA and University of Wisconsin, Madison alumnus, is one of the finalists. James is being recognized for flying airplanes into hundreds of violent tropical storms to gather information for more accurate weather forecasts.

Finalists also have the chance to win the Sammies People’s Choice Award. Voters will choose a winner from the 32 finalists through the Facebook Poll on this page, where you may also find more information about the People’s Choice voting process. The winner will be honored at an awards gala in Washington, D.C. this fall. People’s Choice voting will close at 11:59 p.m. EST on September 9, 2016.

In addition, James was recently featured in The Washington Post and in Feds at Work series on Medium.

2011 AOS Graduate, Dmitry Smirnov, Appointed to National Emergency Management Association Work Group

Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, is proud to announce the appointment of Dmitry Smirnov, Ph.D., to the National Emergency Management Association’s (NEMA) Extreme Weather Adaptation work group.

The group is tasked with creating an extreme weather adaptation plan for NEMA. Smirnov, a meteorologist with Dewberry in the Denver, Colorado, office, will help develop better practices for the management of severe and frequent natural disasters for state directors across the nation who are responsible for preparing and mitigating against this growing threat.

NEMA is the professional association of emergency management directors from all 50 states, eight territories, and the District of Columbia, as a source of information, support, and expertise for emergency management professionals at all levels of government and the private sector.

2005 AOS Grad earns industry recognintion

Next Wave Automation’s Melissa Owens Wins 2016 Wood Industry Award

Perrysburg, OH (July 20, 2016) – Next Wave Automation’s co-owner and co-founder, Melissa Owens, a 2005 University of Wisconsin, BS in AOS, has just been named a winner of 2016 Wood Industry 40 Under 40 award. Winners were selected from a field of more than 135 nominations by a panel of six editors at the Woodworking Network, the woodworking industry’s leading information source, print and digital publisher.

For more information about Next Wave Automation, go to www.nextwaveautomation.com

Three AOS Professors receive named professorships!

The Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department is excited to announce that three of our faculty have been awarded named professorships! Congratulations to Prof. Galen McKinley (Bryson Professor in Climate, People, and the Environment), Prof. Grant Petty (Ned P. Smith Professor of Meteorology) and Prof. Ankur Desai (Ned P. Smith Professor of Climate Science)! All three AOS professors intend to use these awards to advance new research and teaching within Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. More information can be found here.

AOS 401 research project at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Kemp Natural Resources Station

An article written by Prof. Ankur Desai is featured in the Kemp's Point newsletter can be found here. Undergraduates, graduate students, and even two middle schoolers braved the elements over two three-day field trips to Kemp as part of a program at the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) Department at UW to expose students to meteorological instrumentation and field experiments.

2016 Student Awards

Congratulations to the following outstanding AOS students (view pictures):

• Kirsten Mayer – Horn Award for excellence in overall performance as an undergraduate
• Shae Hamm – Lettau-Wahl Award for overall excellence as an undergraduate
• Michelle Feltz – Lettau Award for outstanding performance as a Teaching Assistant
• Connor Dacey - Schwerdtfeger Award for excellent performance in first year graduate studies
• Ross Dixon – Wahl Award for outstanding performance as a Teaching Assistant
• Zoe Brooke-Zibton – Sunkel Award for exceptional scholarly potential as an undergraduate
• Cody Beeson and Brian Zimmerman - Ettenheim Award for involvment in a project where there is personal collection of data over land and/or water with an emphasis on physical meteorology, followed by a written report at the completion of the research project.
• Matt Hitchman – GSA Teaching Award for teaching excellence in a graduate level class
• Melissa Breeden – Colloquium Student Service Award for creative dedication to the department's intellectual life

AOSS Poster Winners:

• Graduate Winner – April Hang
• Graduate Honorable Mention – Kai-Wei Chang and Ethan Nelson
• Undergraduate Winner – Henry Nuckles
• Undergraduate Honorable Mention - Gabe Bromley and Matthew Westphall

2016 Reid Bryson Scholarship Winners:

• The $1,000 Graduate Student Award goes to Alex Matus of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences for his poster, “What are the climate impacts of African biomass burning aerosols?” (coauthor Tristan L’Ecuyer)
• The $500 Graduate Student Runner-up Award goes to Yun “April” Hang of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences for her poster, “Distinguishing the effects of different cloud types on the atmospheric radiation budget” (coauthor Tristan L’Ecuyer)
• The $500 Undergraduate Student Award goes to Emily Nettesheim of the Department of Zoology for her poster, “Future Prairies Under A Warmer Climate: A Case Study of the Cold Tolerance of Two Prairie Plant Species” (coauthors Laura Ladwig and Ellen Damschen)

Congratulations to Kuni Inoue for winning the Max Eaton prize

It is great pleasure to inform you that Graduate Student, Kuniaki Inoue was just awarded the Max Eaton prize for best student presentation at the 32nd Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology through AMS this year. It is also worthy to point out that this is already the second time a student advised by Professor Larissa Back has received such an honor.  This is a very prestigious award, for which the competition is especially strong.  Congratulations to both Kuni and Larissa for their fine work.

Dr. Louis Uccellini, Director of the NWS to receive AOS Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement

Receiving the Department's first Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement, Dr. Uccellini will be on campus to give a public lecture on Thursday, April 14th at 7:00pm in B10 Ingraham.

AOS 102 Online Flyer Summer term 2016
This on-line version of AOS 102 will provide a comprehensive overview on climate and climate change with a local focus on the Great Lakes Region. We're excited to offer this course completely on-line! Along with a lighter carbon footprint and the added convenience of web-based access, we hope you'll enjoy interacting via our on-line forum, along with taking the occasional web-based field trip.To view the course content and participate in the forum, you must be registered for section 1 of AOS 102 (640-102-001) for the UW-Madison 2016 summer semester. Please note that reliable access to the Internet is required. If you experience problems with your Internet connection while working on assignments, it is your responsibility to find an alternative Internet access point, such as the library or any other WIFI hot-spot, to keep up and keep learning.

Prof. Zhengyu Liu and his collaborators published a paper on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences projecting the future of Atlantic climate variability

Using computer models with future global warming scenarios, Prof. Zhengyu Liu and an international team led by Prof. Jun Cheng from China recently published a paper on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Their study suggests that interdecadal variability (i.e. variability of periods of several decades) of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) will be shortened and weakened under future global warming scenarios. They propose that the shortening of the variability is caused by the changing oceanic wave speed in response to global warming, which subsequently reduces the amplitude of the variability.  The AMOC is a key ocean current that modulates global climate and this finding may have important implications for the future projection of climate and climate variability.

PNAS paper:
Reduced interdecadal variability of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under global warming

Report at Phys.org:
Variability of major oceanic currents driven by climate change

Congratulations to Prof. Tristan L'Ecuyer and to Prof. Ankur Desai on their UW2020 Proposals

Tthe just-announced selection of three(!) highly competitive UW2020 proposals (only 14 selected campus-wide out of 134 submitted) on which one or the other is serving as Co-Investigator:

ferris-energy-satellites
stanley-hydroscape
townsend-spectrometer-plants

Also our affiliate, Jack Williams, is involved in this UW2020 Proposal, which has relevance to our department in establishing a new research center on abrupt  change: turner-abrupt-ecol-change

Congratulations to Gijs de Boer, one of Prof. Tripoli's former students.

Gijs de Boer has been named a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, "the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers." Read the article here.

Congrats to Galen McKinley and two of her former students for leading this letter just out today in this week’s Nature:

Timescales for detection of trends in the ocean carbon sink        
Nature Letter
A climate modelling experiment is used to identify where ocean carbon uptake should change as a result of anthropogenic climate change and to distinguish these changes from internal climate variability; we may be able to detect changing uptake in some oceanic regions between 2020 and 2050, but until then, internal climate variability will preclude such detection.
Galen A. McKinley, Darren J. Pilcher, Amanda R. Fay et al.

Nature news on the article: Climate science: Hidden trends in the ocean carbon sink
Media: New climate model better predicts changes to ocean-carbon sink  

Prof. Dan Vimont is a new co-chair of the CLIVAR SSC

Congratulations Prof. Dan Vimont on your new co-chair position with US CLIVAR.

Prof. L'Ecuyer and Graduate Student, Elin McIlhattan work on Greenlands' energy budget is in the Badger Herald

Read the article here

Holloway honored for promoting public dialogue

Congratulations to Prof. Tracey Holloway, who was recently honored with a AAAS Public Engagement Fellowship! The prestigious award acknowledges Prof. Holloway’s work on promoting dialogue between science and society. You can read more about Prof. Holloway’s work and the award here from Inside UW Madison.

Prof. Galen McKinley and co-authors have an opinion article published in Eos

Starting today in Paris, the international community is trying to agree on how to limit the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere so as to reduce future climate change. Reducing fossil fuel use is crucial. It is also possible that carbon storage in the land biosphere and in aquatic systems could help to reduce the atmospheric load. Though our understanding of how to enhance such long-term carbon sinks is poor, these strategies are being included in policy portfolios. In an Opinion article in Eos, Professor Galen McKinley and co-authors explain the state of the art in carbon cycle understanding and call for new investments in carbon cycle science to support climate change mitigation policy. Read the article here.

Congratulations Jacola Roman and Jessica Gartzke. Both recieved awards at the 20th International TOVS Study Conferences (ITSC).

Jacola won gold in oral presentations for "Measurement Requirements and Current Capabilities for Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitable Water Vapor." and Jessica won silver in poster presentations for "Ten Years of CAPE Observations in the U. S. SGP from the AIRS Hyperspectral IR Sounder: Climatology, Validation, and Near-real Time Applications."

Prof. Michael Morgan elected to the UCAR Board of Trustees, Congratulations Michael!

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/17674/three-new-members-join-ucar-board-trustees

Library Workshops for AOS Graduate Students

http://libcomm.blogspot.com/2015/10/october-library-workshops-for-aos.html
The workshops will be held on Monday, October 19th and Monday, October 26th from 1:30-2:30 in room 823 of the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Building. Students can attend either workshop.

Prof. Jon Martin featured in Marshall Shepherd's segment "Wx Geeks" on the Weather Channel

Prof. Martin talks about the shrinking arctic cold pool and other topics. The Weather Channel's hurricance and storm specialist, Greg Postel, who also appears with Jon in the segment, is an alum of our PhD program.

UW-Madison is now StormReady!

UW-Madison was officially recognized as StormReady by NWS Director and UW-AOS Alum Dr. Louis Uccelini at a ceremony on September 10. Here is the NWS article. Thanks to all involved in making this happen!


image courtesy of UW-CIMSS

Tracey Holloway named inaugural fellow of AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute

http://nelson.wisc.edu/news/story.php?story=2329

Prof. Dan Vimont interviewed by WPT regarding the ongoing El Niño event

The interview is scheduled to air tonight (9/4/2015) at 7:30 on "Here and Now" on Wisconsin Public Television.

http://wptschedule.org/episodes/46017940/Here-and-Now/

TV Academy to Induct Six Honorees intoWisconsin Silver Circle, Sunday, October 4

The Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will induct six veterans from Wisconsin broadcasting into the Academy’s prestigious Silver Circle. 
The Television Academy established the Silver Circle to honor outstanding individuals who have devoted 25 years or more to the television industry, and who have made significant contributions to their local television market.

• Bart Adrian ('81, M.S.), former WITI-TV meteorologist, now with UW-Milwaukee

Understanding El Niño: Q&A with climate scientist Dan Vimont

Understanding El Niño: Q&A with climate scientist Dan Vimont

AOS Inaugural Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement

The AOS department announces a new award to recognize our high-caliber and accomplished alumni. Awarded alumni will be recognized during the University of Wisconsin reception at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting. If you know someone deserving of this award, please submit a nomination. For the inaugural award to be presented January 2016, please submit no later than October 1. Nominations can be submitted here. Please include your name, the nominee’s name and contact information, and a one paragraph write-up of their accomplishments.

Journal of the UW-AOS

This is an unofficial journal of working papers written by undergraduate and graduate students of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. These papers are not intended to be used as official references.
Check out their work in the Journal of the UW-AOS

Archived Department News