Conversation with Jule G. Charney, an Oral History

Jule Gregory Charney, 1917-1981, B.A. in mathematics and physics, 1938, M.A. in mathematics, 1940, Ph.D. in meteorology, 1946, University of California at Los Angeles, remained at UCLA during World War II to assist in the training of weather officers for the armed services. He was director of the Meteorological Research Group at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, 1948-1956, where he collaborated with mathematician John von Neumann in the development of numerical weather prediction through the use of high speed computers. His work contributed to the establishment of the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit in Maryland for the prediction of large-scale weather patterns for the Air Force, Navy, and U.S. Weather Bureau. He came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1956 as professor of meteorology and director of the Atmospheric and Ocean Dynamics Project, and became the first Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in 1974. He was head of the Department of Meteorology, 1974-1977. His research focused on the mathematical description of large-scale atmospheric circulations and included work on the theory of ocean currents, atmospheric wave propagation, large-scale hydrodynamic instability, hurricanes, drought, and atmospheric blocking ridges.