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Rossby
Mon Apr 19, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton, and this is The Weather Notebook. Let us now consider the life
and career of Carl-Gustaf Rossby.
It's 1926, the height of the jazz age, when a brilliant young Swedish meteorologist
arrives in Washington, bent on blasting American forecasting out of the Stone Age.
This would be no easy task since Charles Marvin, the unprogressive chief of the
Weather Bureau, develops an instant dislike for this Swedish whiz kid and his polar
front theory. It takes a flight of Charles Lindbergh and the "Spirit of St. Louis" to turn the
tide. Rossby had signed on to do the weather forecasting for Lindbergh's daring
non-stop winter flight from Washington, DC to Mexico City in 1928, and his accuracy is
so amazing that Marvin fires him in a fit of envy. Rossby moves on to California,
barnstorming around the state, and forecasting for a fledgling airline, Pan American.
That year, there is not a single aviation accident. Also in 1928, the 30-year-old Rossby
joins the faculty of MIT and starts the first complete academic program in atmospheric
science at an American university.
In 1937, Rossby makes his critical breakthrough on how air masses are steered by
immense upper-air waves -- "Rossby waves," as they're called now. When the war
breaks out, Rossby persuades America's military brass to use private universities for
the emergency training of thousands of wartime forecasters.
In 1947, Carl Rossby returns to his native Sweden. Ten years later, he suffers a heart
attack, and dies at the age of 58. But he is still considered a hero of 20th Century
atmospheric science.
Today's story was sent in by David Laskin. The Weather Notebook is produced at the
Mount Washington Observatory, online at www.mountwashington.org. Support is
provided by Subaru of America and the National Science Foundation.
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