Background
Atlas was born May 25, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, from Jewish parents who immigrated from Poland and Russia.
meteorologist university professor
Atlas was born May 25, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, from Jewish parents who immigrated from Poland and Russia.
Bachelor of Science, New York University, 1946; Master of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1951; Doctor of Science in Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1955.
His career extended from World World War II to the present days. He has worked for the United States Air Force, then was professor at the University of Chicago and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), researcher at National Aeronautics and Space Administration and private consultant. He served in the United States. Army during the Second World War in the United States Army Air Corps, where he worked on the development of radars, in particular on the problem of precipitation echos.
After the war, Atlas remained in the United States. Air Force for 18 years, working at the Cambridge Research Laboratories, in Bedford, Massachusetts, as head of a research team on weather radars while working on his Master and Doctorate degrees.
He particularly investigated the Doppler Effect for use in wind measurement. From 1966 to 1972, Atlas was professor of meteorology at the University of Chicago.
From 1972 to 1976, he was the director of the atmospheric technologies division at NCAR in Boulder, Colorado. The results of his team were used for the development of the actual United States Doppler weather radars network called NEXRAD. In 1977, Atlas formed the Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This center has produced numerous meteorological instruments to be used on weather satellites for study of the atmosphere, the oceans, and the cryosphere.
Atlas officially retired in 1984, but remained active in the meteorology research community, in particular in radar meteorology. He still worked until recently at Goddard, he is a fellow of the American Geophysical Society, the Royal Meteorological Society (Rated Maximum Sinusoidal),and the National Academy of Engineering. Atlas is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (American Mathematical Society), and a previous president in 1975.
Atlas died on November 10, 2015 from complications following a stroke in Silver Spring, Maryland at the age of 91.
First lieutenant United States Army Air Force, 1943-1946. Fellow American Meteorological Society (councilor 1961-1964, 72-74, Meisinger award 1957, associate editor publications 1957-1974, president 1975, Cleveland Abbè award 1983, Remote Sensing award 1991, Carl Gustav Rossby medal 1996), American Geophysical Union, American Astronomical Society, Royal Meteorological Society (Symons Memorial medal 1989), American Association for the Advancement of Science (chairman atmospheric and hydrospheric science section 1986). Member National Academy of Engineering, International Radio Science Union (president inter-union commn.on radio meteorology 1969-1972).
Married Lucille Rosen, September 26, 1948. Children: Joan Linda, Robert Fred.
