Celebrating Eugenia Kalnay's scientific contributions by the numbers: Journal publications, books, meetings and their long-lasting impacts

I will begin my talk with an analysis of all the journal publications in the Web of Science Core Collection (ISI) that Professor Eugenia Kalnay authored, including but not limited to numbers, citations, subject areas, co-authors, etc. At the time of this abstract submission, she has co-authored 150 journal papers with an astonishing 20346 total number of citations. Among this work is her lead-authored 1996 paper on “The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project” published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, which has been cited 11435 times and counting at a rate of more than 1000 citations per year. These are all astronomical numbers. Her red-covered 2003 book on “Atmospheric Modeling, Data Assimilation and Predictability” is often referred to as the “bible of numerical weather prediction” and is widely used in classrooms and references---it is the designated textbook for both NWP and data assimilation courses that I teach at Penn State. I will conclude the talk with many of the fond memories and scientific contributions of Eugenia over dozens of meetings where we met and interacted over the past decade. Most notably, the 2008 WMO Workshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina on "4DVar and Ensemble Kalman Filter Inter-comparison" which she organized was instrumental in bringing ensemble-based data assimilation techniques from their alleged “academic excise” to the forefront of operational numerical weather prediction. I remember vividly her famous challenge at the workshop “if the adjoint method can do it, we shall be able to do it with the ensemble.” I assume she also implied that ensemble methods are likely better and more cost-effective than 4DVar, which was the measure of success at the time. The same challenge stands to this date. On a more personal level, we have enjoyed her enthusiasm, insight and criticism at each and every of the friendly, but stimulating, data assimilation workshops held annually between my colleagues and students at Penn State and her colleagues and students at the University of Maryland over the past 5 years. She has also been one of the most active participants in the ensemble Kalman filter workshop series that I lead coordinated over the past 10 years in Texas and New York. Her passion and dedication to science are second to none.