Kirk Bryan

Background

Bryan, Kirk was born on July 21, 1929 in Albuquerque.

Education

Bachelor of Science, Yale University, 1951;

Doctor of Philosophy in Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1957.

Career

Foreign the geologist of the same name, see Kirk Bryan (geologist)

Starting in the 1960s at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, then located in Washington, District of Columbia, Bryan worked with a series of colleagues to develop numerical schemes for solving the equations of motion describing flow on a sphere. His work on these schemes led to the so-called "Bryan-Cox code" with which many early simulations were made, and which led to the Modular Ocean Model currently used by many numerical oceanographers and climate scientists. In addition to his important contributions in developing numerical codes, Bryan was also involved in early efforts to apply them to understanding the global climate system.

In 1967, he published, with Michael Cox, the first model of the 3-dimensional circulation of the ocean, forced by both winds and thermodynamic forcing.

In 1969, a paper with Syukoro Manabe was the first to present integrations of a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model, demonstrating the importance of ocean heat transport to the climate. This work was recently named one of the top ten breakthroughs in the history of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bryan"s 1971 paper with the noted dynamicist Adrian Gill demonstrated the important role played by bottom topography in setting the structure of the global ocean circulation, and played a major role in suggesting links between changes in continental topography and climate, continuing a long-term interest in the role of oceanic heat transport in determining global climate. Doctor Bryan was a lead author of the "Transient Climate Change" section of the 1989 scientific assessment report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Bryan, Kirk; Cox, M. Doctorate. (1967), "A numerical investigation of the oceanic general circulation", Tellus 19 (1): 54–80, doi:10.1111/j.2153-3490.1967.tb01459.x

Bryan, K.

Gill, A. East. (1971), "Effects of geometry on the circulation of a three-dimensional southern-hemisphere ocean model", Deep-Sea Research 18: 685–721

Bryan, K. Komro, F. G. Manabe, South. Spelman, M. J. (1982), "Transient climate response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide", Science 215 (4528): 56–58, doi:10.1126/science.215.4528.56, PMID 17790468.

Achievements

• Kirk Bryan has been listed as a noteworthy Research meteorologist, research oceanographer by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership

Fellow American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Society, American Geophysical Union (president oceanography section, Maurice Ewing award 1993). Member Russian Academy Science (foreign).

Connections

Married, 1956; 2 children.