Dennis L. Hartmann

Dennis L. Hartmann

The AMS has served its members, our professional disciplines, and society for nearly a century. It important to recognize changes that affect AMS and its members, and to develop strategies to make AMS as effective as possible in fulfilling its mission as the nation’s premier scientific and professional organization promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrological sciences.

Members from the government, private, and academic sectors must feel equally well represented and served by AMS and its programs. One challenge is to reengage the academic community in sustaining AMS as the leading society for basic science in the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrological fields, while simultaneously maintaining its leadership in the private and government sectors.

AMS must serve policymakers with the best science advice and retain the trust of the public in what science and technology can offer for the benefit of humanity and nature at a time when the country seems to be very divided.

AMS must serve the needs of early-career professionals, as they will lead our field in the future.

AMS must assure its financial stability through sound fiscal planning and innovative programs to support our key enterprises.

AMS must continuously improve the value of the Annual Meeting to members. One change that I would encourage is to increase the number of conferences and symposia focused on emerging or rapidly developing topics and to encourage early-career members to propose topics that are current and exciting.

The Centennial Celebration of AMS is coming up in 2019, and the preparations are already underway. A key challenge and opportunity for the AMS president chosen in this election is to lead AMS through its centennial year and preside at the Centennial Annual Meeting in Boston. I would be honored to devote my energy to that task.

Dennis L. Hartmann

Dennis L. Hartmann is professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. He served as department chair from 2002 to 2007 and was interim dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington in 2008–10. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Portland and his Ph.D. in geophysical fluid dynamics from Princeton University. His research interests include atmospheric dynamics, radiation and remote sensing, climate dynamics, and computational methods to extract information from data. Hartmann has held visiting scientist positions at McGill University, The National Center for Atmospheric Research, Oxford University, École Normale Superieure, Reading University, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting.

Hartmann is a Fellow of the AMS, chaired the AMS Committee on the Upper Atmosphere, and was program chair for the Third AMS Conference on the Upper Atmosphere. He served on the AMS Committee on Climate Variations and the AMS Nominating Committee. He has served as associate editor and editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences and is currently serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Climate. He was the AMS Haurwitz Lecturer in 2011.

Hartmann has published nearly 200 articles in refereed scientific journals and published the textbook Global Physical Climatology. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Carl Gustav Rossby Research Medal of the AMS. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He has served on numerous advisory, editorial, and review boards for the NAS, NSF, NASA, and NOAA, and was the chair of the Board of Trustees of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research from 2011 to 2013. He served as a coordinating lead author for the Fifth Assessment of The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).