Keith Anthony Browning (born 31 July 1938) is a British

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...

who worked at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, the

Met Office The Met Office, until November 2000 officially the Meteorological Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and ...

, and the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

departments of meteorology. His work with Frank Ludlam on the

supercell A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone, a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms (su ...

thunderstorm at

Wokingham Wokingham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is the main administrative centre of the wider Borough of Wokingham. At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 38,284 and the wider built-up area had a populati ...

, UK in 1962 was the first detailed study of such a storm.; His research covered many areas of

mesoscale meteorology Mesoscale meteorology is the study of weather systems and processes at horizontal scales of approximately to several hundred kilometres. It is smaller than synoptic scale meteorology, synoptic-scale systems (1,000 km or larger) but larger than Mi ...

including developing the theory of the

sting jet A sting jet is a narrow, transient and Mesoscale meteorology, mesoscale airstream that descends from the troposphere, mid-troposphere to the surface in some extratropical cyclones. When present, sting jets produce some of the strongest surface ...

. Arguably his greatest talent is his intuitive understanding of complex three-dimensional meteorological processes which he has described more simply using ''conceptual models''. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1978. He was president of the

Royal Meteorological Society The Royal Meteorological Society is an organization that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Members can be lay enthusiasts. It publishes vari ...

from 1988 to 1990. In 1992, Browning was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

for fundamental contributions to the detection and understanding of storms, and the development of operational storm-detection and warning systems.

References

External links

University of Reading faculty profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Browning, Keith Academics of Imperial College London Academics of the University of Reading British meteorologists Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Royal Meteorological Society Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal recipients 1938 births Living people UK Met Office staff and researchers