If you caught this column yesterday, you may recall that it concerned Paul Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for revealing the hidden secrets of the ozone hole. Today let us consider the Jule G. Charney Award, the nearest equivalent to a laureate for those involved in meteorology.
The Charney Award of the American Meteorological Society is given "in recognition of highly significant research or development achievement in the atmospheric or hydrologic sciences". And I suppose after a horrible word like hydrologic, I really ought to put a little (sic).
Anyway, the eponymous Charney was quondam Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and played a major role in the development of weather prediction by computer. In meteorological circles, to receive the Charney Award is just about as far as you can go. And guess who won it this year: Tony Hollingsworth.
I used to share a flat with Tony. He is a Dub, and we first met as 18-year-olds at UCC, after which we trained as meteorologists together and went on to try our hand at forecasting the weather for the aircraft at Shannon.
But then, while your inglorious scribe was languishing in comparative obscurity, mumbling like Sydney Carton in the local taverns: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", Tony was taking the world of meteorology by storm.
He did a master's degree in a branch of mathematics at UCC, on the strength of which he was awarded a fellowship to the MIT. From there he emerged with a PhD in meteorology in 1970, and after a spell as an assistant professor at the University of Reading, he joined the European Weather Centre and has been there ever since.
With Tony's help, the Reading centre has become the world leader in the preparation of forecasts for two to 10 days ahead. Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Hollingsworth, as he is now, has accumulated another doctorate or two, and published a string of research papers to international acclaim. His reputation is such that . . .
. . . he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
It was as deputy director and head of research at the European Weather Centre that Dr Anthony Hollingsworth stepped forward to accept the Jule G. Charney Award for 1999. "For penetrating research on four-dimensional data assimilation systems and numerical models," they said in his citation, and he must be really, really good if they said that.