faculty.roger a. pielke, ph.d.

Roger A. Pielke, Research Professor

During his career, Dr. Pielke has studied the terrain-induced mesoscale systems, including the development of a three-dimensional mesoscale model of the sea breeze, for which he received the NOAA Distinguished Authorship Award for 1974. Dr. Pielke has worked for NOAA's Experimental Meteorology Lab (1971-1974), The University of Virginia (1974-1981), and Colorado State University (1981-2004). He has served as Chairman and Member of the AMS Committee on Weather Forecasting and Analysis, and was Chief Editor for the Monthly Weather Review for five years from 1981-1985. In 1977, he received the AMS Leroy Meisinger Award for "fundamental contributions to mesoscale meteorology through numerical modeling of the sea breeze and interaction among the mountains, oceans, boundary layer, and the free atmosphere." Dr. Pielke received the 1984 Abell New Faculty Research and Graduate Program Award, and also received the 1987/1988 Abell Research Faculty Award. He was declared "Researcher of 1993" by the Colorado State University Research Foundation. He has authored a book published by Academic Press entitled Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling, a book for Routledge Press entitled The Hurricane, and co-authored (with W. Cotton) a book for Cambridge Press entitled Human Impacts on Weather and Climate and co-authored (with R. Pielke, Jr.) a book published by John Wiley and Sons entitled " Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society." He was elected a Fellow of the AMS in 1982. From 1993-1996, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report (1991-1995) for the American Geophysical Union. From January 1996 to the present, he has served as Co-Chief Editor (with W. Cotton) of the Journal of Atmospheric Science . He has published over 220 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 32 chapters in books, and co-edited five books.

Education

• Ph.D., Penn State, Meteorology, 1973
• M.S., Penn State, Meteorology, 1969
• B.A., Towson State College, Mathematics, 1968

Professional Experience

• Adjunct Research Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, 2004-Present
• Professor and Colorado State Climatologist, Colorado State University, 1981-Present
• The University of Virginia, 1974-1981
• NOAA's Experimental Meteorology Lab, 1971-1974

Current Publications [complete list]

Pitman, A.J., G.T. Narisma, R.A. Pielke Sr., and N.J. Holbrook, 2004: The impact of land cover change on the climate of southwest western Australia. J. Geophys. Res., submitted.

Matsui, T., H. Masunaga, R.A. Pielke Sr., and W-K. Tao, 2004: Impact of aerosols and atmospheric thermodynamics on cloud properties within the climate system. Geophys. Res. Letts, in preparation.

Baldi, M., G.A. Dalu, R.A. Pielke Sr., and F. Meneguzzo, 2004: Subgrid parameterization of mesoscale fluxes and pressure field. Environ. Fluid Mech., in revision.

Pielke, R.A. Sr., N. Doesken, O. Bliss, T. Green, C. Chaffin, J.D. Salas, C. Woodhouse, J.L. Lukas, and K. Wolter, 2004: Drought 2002 in Colorado - An unprecedented drought or a routine drought? Pure Appl. Geophys., Special Issue in honor of Prof. Singh, submitted.

Peel, D., A.J. Pitman, L. Hughes, G. Narisma, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2004: The impact of an explicit representation of eucalypts on the simulation of the January climate of Australia. Env. Modelling and Software, submitted.

Honors and Awards

• Fellow, AMS;
• Received 1977 American Meteorological Society's Leroy Meisinger Award for Fundamental Contributions to Mesoscale Meteorology through Numerical Modeling of the Sea Breeze and Interactions among the Mountains, Oceans, Boundary Layer, and Free Atmosphere;
• 1987/1988 Abell Research Faculty Award;
• 1984 Abell New Faculty Research and Graduate Program Award;
• CSURF 1993 Researcher of the Year Award;
• 1993 Designated a Pennsylvania State Centennial Fellow;
• 1998 NOAA/ERL's Outstanding Scientific Paper Award “Convective Initiation at the Dryline: Modeling Study” Mon. Wea. Rev., Vol. 25, 1001-1026 (with co-authors Conrad Ziegler and John Lee);
• 1999's Alumni of the Year presented by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University;
• Awarded the Engineering Dean's Council Award in April 2000;
• A paper with Lawton, R.O., U.S. Nair, R.A. Pielke Sr., and R.M. Welch (2001: Climatic impact of tropical lowland deforestation on nearby montane cloud forests, Science, 294, 584-587) has been listed in Science News as being one of the most important science papers of 2001 in the area of Earth Science/Environment and Ecology.

Current and Ongoing Research

• Atmospheric dynamics with an emphasis on the interaction of land surface and ocean processes with the atmosphere, atmospheric dispersion, and nonlinear geophysical interactions including deterministic chaos and predictability.
• While research emphasis is on mesoscale weather and climate processes, investigations include global, regional, and microscale studies.
• Development of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). This nested grid meteorological model has been used in published studies of a wide variety of atmospheric systems including winter storms, cumulonimbus convection, diurnal boundary layer evolution, hurricanes, and land and sea breezes. For applications to climate studies, RAMS has been integrated for annual time periods using larger-scale atmospheric observations for lateral boundary conditions. RAMS has been linked to an ocean model, and to an ecosystem dynamics/hydrologic modeling system in order to evaluate feedbacks between these different geophysical systems. The mechanisms by which natural and anthropogenic trace gases are emitted, transported, dispersed, and deposited are being examined using RAMS output linked to a Lagrangian aand Eulerian dispersion model.

Books

Pielke, R.A., 1984: Mesoscale meteorological modeling. 1st Edition Academic Press, New York, N.Y., 612 pp. (Translated into Chinese with corrections by the Chinese Meteorological Press, 1990.)

Beniston, M. and R.A. Pielke, Editors, 1987: Interactions between energy transformations and atmospheric phenomena. A survey of recent research. Reprinted from Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Volume 41, Nos. 1-4 (1987), D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, 426 pp.

Pielke, R.A., Editor, 1987: Acid deposition in Colorado - A potential or current problem, local versus long-distance transport into the state. A compendium of papers presented at a workshop sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, August 13-15, 1986, 230 pp.

Pielke, R.A. and T. Kittel, Editors, 1988: Monitoring climate for the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. A Compendium of Papers Presented at a Workshop Sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Pingree Park, Colorado, August 26-28, 1987.

Pielke, R.A., 1990: The hurricane. Routledge Press, London, England, 228 pp.

Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, 1992: Grasslands and grassland xciences in Northern China, Office of International Affairs, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 214 pp.

Rotunno, R., J.A. Curry, C.W. Fairall, C.A. Friehe, W.A. Lyons, J.E. Overland, R.A. Pielke, D.P. Rogers, S.A. Stage, G.L. Geernaert, J.W. Nielsen, and W.A. Sprigg, 1992: Coastal Meteorology - A review of the state of the science. Panel on Coastal Meteorology, Committee on Meteorological Analysis, Prediction, and Research, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 99 pp.

Cotton, W.R. and R.A. Pielke, 1995: Human impacts on weather and climate, Cambridge University Press, New York, 288 pp.

Pielke, R.A., 1995: A primer on weather and climate, in preparation.

Pielke, R.A. and R.P. Pearce, Editors, 1994: Mesoscale modeling of the atmosphere. American Meteorological Society Monograph, Volume 25, 167 pp.

Pielke, R.A., Jr. and R.A. Pielke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their nature and impacts on society. John Wiley and Sons, England, 279 pp.

Pielke, R.A., Jr. and R.A. Pielke, Sr., Editors, 2000: Storms, Volumes I and II, Routledge Press, London.

Pielke, R.A, Sr.., 2002: Mesoscale meteorological modeling. 2nd Edition, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 676 pp.

Kabat, P., Claussen, M., Dirmeyer, P.A., J.H.C. Gash, L. Bravo de Guenni, M. Meybeck, R.A. Pielke Sr., C.J. Vorosmarty, R.W.A. Hutjes, and S. Lutkemeier, Editors, 2002: Vegetation, water, humans and the climate: A new perspective on an interactive system. Global Change - The IGBP Series Springer, in press.