Principal Oceanographer- Retiree
Professor Emeritus, Oceanography
People
Gary A. Maykut passed peacefully at his home on March 10, 2023. Gary held the position of Research Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington from the early 1970s until his retirement in 2004. Gary pioneered the numerical simulation of the Arctic surface energy budget, specifically quantifying the 1-D accounting of heat by the ice cover. Gary’s graduate work (1971) produced the highly-cited paper “Some results from a time-dependent thermodynamic model of sea ice.” This work laid the foundation for how modern global (and regional) climate models do the “accounting” of heat by the Arctic sea…
Norbert Untersteiner, founder and former director of the Polar Science Center, passed away on March 14, 2012 at the age of 86. Norbert was the director of the Polar Science Center from 1981-1988 when he became chairman of Atmospheric Sciences at UW. A Memorial Celebration of Norbert’s life will be held on the UW campus at the University Club (the former Faculty Club) on Friday, April 13 from 6-8pm. All are welcome. For further information, contact Mike Wallace at (206) 543-7390 or the Polar Science Center at (206) 543-6613. In lieu of flowers or gifts, donations may be made to the Kaplan Research Fund, c/o Swedish Medical Center Foundation, 747 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122.
PSC Chair
Senior Principal Physicist and Affiliate Assistant Professor, Atmospheric Sciences
Alan Thorndike died on Jan 8, 2018 from an aggressive pneumonia. He was 72 years old. For those of you who don’t know, Alan was one of the original AIDJEX gang and founding PIs of PSC. Working with Drew Rothrock, he developed the concept of the thickness distribution that is at the heart of most sea ice models.
Senior Principal Physicist;
Research Professor, Astrobiology Program and Earth & Space Sciences