megapanalo Warren Washington, Groundbreaking Climate Scientist, Dies at 88
Warren M. Washington, a scientist who helped invent one of the first computer models of the earth’s atmosphere, paving the way to accurately measure human-induced climate change, died on Oct. 18 at his home in Denver. He was 88.
His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where Dr. Washington was a senior scientist and had worked for more than 50 years.
Dr. Washington was a pioneer in two senses.
The son of a Pullman-car porter in Portland, Ore., he became the second Black student in the United States to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology.
He was also one of the country’s first and most influential climate scientists, advising five presidents on climate change and serving as a mentor to generations of researchers who followed him.
In 1964 — the same year Dr. Washington received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University — he and Akira Kasahara, a colleague at the Center for Atmospheric Research, created a computer model replicating aspects of the earth’s atmosphere and climate. Although it was built on a rudimentary early computer, it could be used to demonstrate the effects of human-induced changes on the planet.
The “models that we started with in 1964 were very primitive,” Dr. Washington said in a 2006 interview for The HistoryMakers, an online archive of conversations with significant Black Americans. “The early models were simple atmosphere models. Then we added oceans. Then we added sea ice. Then we added land surface vegetation.”
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