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FollowLong-time NERSC User Honored for Climate Modelling Work
Washington Wins Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement
February 12, 2019
Warren M. Washington—a long-time and distinguished NERSC principal investigator and a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research—was awarded the 2019 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement today. He shares the prize—often described as the "Nobel Prize for the environment"—with Pennsylvania State University's Michael Mann.
In the 1960s, Washington was among the first scientists to develop atmospheric computer models. As computing power grew, Washington lead a collaborative effort to expand his model to include other factors like land and water.
The resulting Community Climate System Model (CCSM) was instrumental to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment. The IPCC team, including Washington, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work. Washington, who conducted much of his research at NERSC, has served on the NERSC Policy Board and delivered a NERSC Nobel Keynote talk as part of the center's year-long 40th anniversary celebration.
Washington was science advisor to four presidents and has received many honors. In 2010, he was awarded the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama, the highest honor given to scientists by the U.S. government.
About NERSC and Berkeley Lab
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility that serves as the primary high performance computing center for scientific research sponsored by the Office of Science. Located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NERSC serves almost 10,000 scientists at national laboratories and universities researching a wide range of problems in climate, fusion energy, materials science, physics, chemistry, computational biology, and other disciplines. Berkeley Lab is a DOE national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy. »Learn more about computing sciences at Berkeley Lab.
