Roland Aloysius Madden, an American meteorologist, was a staff scientist at the

National Center for Atmospheric Research The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR ) is a US federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and funded by the National Science Foundat ...

(NCAR) from 1967 to 2002. His research centers on diagnostic studies of the atmosphere. Madden is a fellow of the

American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...

(AMS) and a recipient of the 2002 Jule G. Charney Award of the AMS.

Biography

Madden was born on May 8, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Edison Park in northwest Chicago and attended St. Juliana’s Grammar School and Fenwick High School He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from

Loyola University Chicago Loyola University Chicago (Loyola or LUC) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1870 by the Society of Jesus, Loyola is one of the largest Catholic Church, ...

in 1961. That same year, he joined the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

where he served for four years as Duty Forecaster at

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and Assistant Staff Meteorologist at

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. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in meteorology from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 1967 and

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado, United States. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University Syst ...

in 1978 respectively. In 1967, he was appointed staff scientist at the

in Boulder Colorado where he worked for 35 years, most recently as a member of the Climate Analysis Section in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division. Madden spent periods of time as an invited scientist at a variety of institutions, including the

Scripps Institute of Oceanography Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, California, La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma, San Die ...

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

Naval Postgraduate School Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a Naval command with a graduate university mission, operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. The NPS mission is to provide "defense-focused graduate education, including clas ...

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (''Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie''; MPI-M) is an internationally renowned institute for climate research. Its mission is to understand Earth's changing climate. Founded in 1975, it is affiliated w ...

, the New Zealand

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA (), is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental sciences. It also maintai ...

, and

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

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. Madden retired from NCAR in 2002. He was married to Mary Agnes (née Ruh) Madden (1939–2019) for fifty-seven years, and the couple has four children.

Career highlights

Over the course of his career, Madden authored over 100 research publications, technical reports, and proceedings. He is perhaps best known for his discovery in 1971 with Paul JulianMadden, R. A., and P. R. Julian, 1971: Detection of a 40–50 day oscillation in the zonal wind in the tropical Pacific. J. Atmos. Sci., 28, 702–708. of the

Madden–Julian oscillation The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is the largest element of the intraseasonal (30- to 90-day) variability in the tropical atmosphere. It was discovered in 1971 by Roland Madden and Paul Julian of the American National Center for Atmospheric ...

(MJO) and the comprehensive description of the phenomenon in 1972. Madden, R. A., and P. R. Julian, 1972: Description of global-scale circulation cells in the tropics with a 40–50 day period. J. Atmos. Sci., 29, 1109–1123. The MJO is an eastward moving atmospheric disturbance that traverses the planet in the tropics with a period of 30–60 days, on average. The MJO is the main intra-seasonal fluctuation explaining weather in the tropics, and it continues to be studied broadly. Selected areas of important contributions (and related publications) in addition to the MJO include: * The first estimates of the composition of cloud clusters in the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) area;Madden, R. A., L. Sapp, and E. Zipser, 1974: Clouds over the tropical Atlantic during July and August 1970. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 55, 587–595. * The introduction of an analysis of variance approach to estimate the potential long-range predictability of pressure, temperature, and precipitation;Madden, R. A., 1976: Estimates of the natural variability of time-averaged sea-level pressure. Mon. Wea. Rev., 104, 942–952.Madden, R. A., and D. J. Shea, 1978: Estimates of the natural variability of time-averaged temperatures over the United States. Mon. Wea. Rev., 106, 1695–1703.Madden, R. A., D. J. Shea, R. W. Katz, and J. W. Kidson, 1999: The potential for long-range predictability of precipitation over New Zealand, Int. J. Climate, 19, 405–421. * The first estimates of the time of emergence of warming due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide;Madden, R. A., and V. Ramanathan, 1980: Detecting climate change due to increasing carbon dioxide. Science, 109, 763–768. * The first estimates relating MJO tropical wind stress and the rotation of the earth;Madden, R. A., 1987: Relationships between changes in the length-of-day and the 40–50 day oscillation in the tropics. J. Geophys. Res., 92, 8391–8399.Madden, R. A., 1988: Large intraseasonal variations in wind stress in the tropics. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 5330–5340. * The first quantitative measures of the effects of imperfect spatial and temporal sampling on estimates of the global mean temperature;Madden, R. A., D. J. Shea, G. W. Branstator, J. J. Tribbia, and R. Weber, 1993: The effects of imperfect spatial and temporal sampling on estimates of the global mean temperature: experiments with model and satellite data. J. Climate, 6, 1057–1066. and * The first comprehensive quantitative estimates of the effect of aliasing.Madden, R. A., and R. H. Jones, 2001: A quantitative estimate of the effect of aliasing in climatological time series. J. Climate, 14, 3987–3993. Madden continues to work and publish as an NCAR Senior Scientist Emeritus. His most recent publicationMadden, R. A., 2019: How I learned to love normal-mode Rossby-Haurwitz waves. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 100, 503-511. presents new evidence of the Rossby-Haurwitz waves and appeared in 2019.

Selected publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madden, Roland 1938 births Living people Fellows of the American Meteorological Society Scientists from Chicago Military personnel from Illinois Loyola University Chicago alumni University of Chicago alumni Colorado State University alumni American meteorologists National Center for Atmospheric Research faculty