Inez Fung, Charney, and Me at MIT

Jule Charney was the advisor of the first two women PhDs in Meteorology (Inez and I). When Norm Phillips (our NWP guru) left MIT, I also became the first woman professor in the Department. Inez says that I joked that I would not let her pass her doctoral defense in order to remain “the only one”.

Charney asked me to develop a numerical algorithm to find steady state solutions for a numerical model even if they are unstable, so that Inez could find a steady state solution for her hurricane model and study its stability. I developed such algorithm and gave it to Inez. The following day I read a note from Inez that said: “I went to the computer room at 8pm, and by midnight I already had the hurricane steady state solution”. Inez was a brilliant student and her note made me incredibly happy! When I became 40, I received a birthday card that only said: “For Number 1, from Number 2”. I was very puzzled until I realized that it had to be from Inez. Later, when we started a long collaboration, I had the opportunity to state publicly the Inez was the real Number 1, and I was Number 2. Inez’ vision that surface carbon fluxes could be accurately computed by using advanced data assimilation methods, led to the brilliant careers of two other women researchers, Junjie Liu and Ji-Sun Kang.

I will briefly review a Science (2018) paper showing that very large-scale solar panels and windmill farms in the Sahara would not only cover all the energy needs of the world, but, through the Charney and the Sud vegetation feedback mechanisms, they would also double the precipitation in the Sahara/Sahel.