Description:

The 2021 AMS Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial Lecturer is Dr. Rong Zhang of NOAA’s GFDL.  Dr. Zhang’s research is on the role of ocean in global teleconnections of abrupt climate change.  She also studies the low frequency variability in coupled ocean-atmosphere system, e.g. Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) with a focus on the mechanisms and fingerprints of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variability and the impact of AMOC on regional phenomena (e.g. Gulf Stream separation, ITCZ shift, Atlantic hurricane activity, and Arctic sea ice extent).

The Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial Lecturer recognizes an outstanding scientist for significant contributions to the understanding of atmospheric and oceanic fluid dynamics, the circulation of the middle atmosphere, or the dynamics of climate.  

Bernhard Haurwitz was a meteorologist and physicist who contributed significantly to the application of mathematics and fluid dynamics to all scales of atmospheric motions. In particular, he wrote important papers on short-period atmospheric wave motions, planetary waves, and vortex motions in tropical cyclones, among other analyses of the structure and motions of the atmosphere.