Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science

Please join us for an information session and Question & Answer panel with faculty and graduate students from the University of Washington’s Atmospheric Science Department. Applications to the graduate program are due December 1st. 

With a La Niña winter favored for a third straight winter, UW News recently featured Dr. Robert Jnglin Wills and Prof. Kyle Armour’s research, which shows that climate change has favored La Niñas, at least in recent years. 

Congratulations to Prof. Dennis Hartmann, who received the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Roger Revelle Medal!
“The Roger Revelle Medal is given annually to one honoree in recognition of outstanding contributions in atmospheric sciences, atmosphere-ocean coupling, atmosphere-land coupling, biogeochemical cycles, climate or related aspects of the Earth system.”
Read more about the award here. 

Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, September 28th as a Category 4 storm. Prof. Shuyi Chen recently discussed the hurricane in a UW News article by Hannah Hickey. Chen discusses Ian’s impacts, how Ian compares to other hurricanes and her work with NOAA. 

Congratulations to Prof. Alex Turner who won the 2021-2022 UW Atmospheric Sciences Teaching Award! The award, coordinated by the graduate students, is given to a faculty member based on student nominations received over an academic year. 

We are very pleased to announce that Alex Turner and Alexandra Anderson-Frey have each been named the inaugural holders of the Calvin Professorship in Atmospheric Science!
These term professorships are for 3 years and will support their research activities on the intersections of climate and air quality, and severe weather, respectively. 

Recent ATMS PhD student Lucas Vargas Zeppetello finds “‘Dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ heat stress to become more common by 2100”. Prof. David Battisti from ATMS and Prof. Adrian Raftery in UW Statistics were also part of the study. 

In the recently released Global Ranking of Academic Subjects the University of Washington was selected as the #1 school in the world for Atmospheric Science.
The 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities placed the University of Washington 17th overall, an improvement from 19th place in 2021. 

Congratulations to Professor Dale Durran for receiving the Jule G. Charney Medal from the American Meteorological Society.  Professor Durran was cited for “fundamental contributions to mountain meteorology through the understanding and numerical simulation of orographically modified flow.”
  

Atmospheric Sciences Professor and Chair Cecilia Bitz was recently interviewed in the Live Science article Which is colder: The North or South Pole? The article discusses differences in the Arctic and Antarctic ice extent, sun exposure, and temperatures, as well as the effects of global warming on the two regions of the earth.