Isaac Held
{{Short description|American meteorologist (born 1948)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Isaac M. Held
| image = Isaac Held.jpg
| image_size = 250px
| image_upright =
| alt =
| caption = Isaac Held
| birth_date = {{birth date |1948|10|23}}
| death_date =
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| nationality = American
| fields = Geophysical fluid dynamics
| workplaces =
| alma_mater = University of Minnesota, B.S.; State University of New York at Stony Brook, M.A.; Princeton University, Ph.D.
| thesis_title =
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| doctoral_advisor = Syukuro Manabe
| doctoral_students = Sukyoung Lee
Olivier Pauluis
Tapio Schneider
Sarah Kang
| known_for =
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| children = 1
}}
Isaac Meyer Held (born October 23, 1948){{cite web |last1=Held |first1=Isaac |title=Vitae |url=https://isaacheld.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf5096/files/isaacheld/files/cv_isaacheld2019.pdf}} is an American meteorologist. He is a retired senior research scientist at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.{{Cite web |title=Isaac Held |url=https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/experts/isaac-held |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=Princeton Environmental Research |language=en}} Held was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2003.
Biography
Born to refugee parents in Ulm, Germany in 1948, Held came to Minnesota with his family at the age of 4. His father died when he was only eight and he and his brother, Herman, were raised by his mother Bertha, a Holocaust survivor who worked as a seamstress.{{Cite journal |last=Trivedi |first=Bijal |date=2006-02-14 |title=Profile of Isaac M. Held |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=103 |issue=7 |pages=2012–2014 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0511071103 |doi-access=free |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=1413754 |pmid=16461890|bibcode=2006PNAS..103.2012T }} Held did his undergraduate work in physics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1969 and started a graduate program in theoretical physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Isaac and his wife, Joann, have one son, Joshua.{{Cite web |title=Isaac M. Held |url=https://honors.agu.org/winners/isaac-m-held/ |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=Honors Program |language=en-US}} While there, he discovered climate science which led to his transferring to the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at Princeton University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1976 under the supervision of Syukuro Manabe. After a brief stint as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, Held returned to Princeton to join the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in 1978, as well as teaching in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) Program at Princeton. He retired from the GFDL and teaching in 2020, but retains an affiliation with AOS, as a Senior Scholar, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.{{Cite web |title=Isaac Held |url=https://environment.princeton.edu/people/isaac-held/ |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=High Meadows Environmental Institute |language=en-US}}
Research
Held's research has had two major themes. The first is understanding how the Earth's climate responds to changes in the amount of solar radiation hitting the planet or to the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. His early work highlighted the importance of the lapse rate in determining the climate's response to radiation changes. Held has continued to be concerned with how global warming can alter both the cycle of water and the distribution of winds on Earth. In a paper published in 2006 with Brian Soden, he showed that this increase in precipitation might nonetheless be associated with a slowdown of the Walker circulation.
The second theme of Held's research is the general circulation of the atmosphere. In one of his earliest papers, he showed that when a region is unstable to the large-scale planetary waves known as Rossby waves, the propagation of waves out of this region results in an easterly (westward) acceleration, which generates jet streams in midlatitudes. In contrast, regions in which these waves break experience an eastward (westerly) acceleration. Held also developed a theory for the Hadley circulation that would exist in the absence of atmospheric turbulence.
Awards and honors
- 1987: Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award, American Meteorological Society{{Cite journal |date=2000 |title=the Society's awards |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26361765 |journal=Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society |volume=81 |issue=8 |pages=1841–1868 |doi=10.1175/1520-0477-81.8.1841 |jstor=26361765 |bibcode=2000BAMS...81.1841. |issn=0003-0007|url-access=subscription }}
- 1991: Fellow, American Meteorological Society{{Cite web |title=List of Fellows |url=https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/about-ams/ams-organization-and-administration/list-of-fellows/ |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=American Meteorological Society |language=en}}
- 1995: Fellow, American Geophysical Union{{Cite web |last=Held |first=Isaac |title=Isaac Held's CV |url=https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/isaac-held-cv/ |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=www.gfdl.noaa.gov |language=en-US}}
- 2003: Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences
- 2005: NOAA Presidential Rank Award
- 2008: Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, American Meteorological Society{{Citation |title=Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal |date=2023-04-15 |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl-Gustaf_Rossby_Research_Medal&oldid=1149966172 |work=Wikipedia |access-date=2023-11-22 |language=en}}
- 2011: BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Climate Change for his fundamental and pioneering contributions to our understanding of the structure of atmospheric circulation systems, and the role of water vapor – the most important greenhouse gas – in Climate Change.{{Cite web |title=Isaac Meyer Held |url=https://www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/galardonados/isaac-meyer-held-2/ |access-date=2023-11-22 |website=Premios Fronteras |language=en}}
- 2018: Roger Revelle Medal, American Geophysical Union
See also
References
{{Reflist|refs=
[http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/ih7802.pdf]
Trivedi, B.,2006: Profile of Isaac Held, Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 2012 2014.[http://www.pnas.org/content/103/7/2012.full]
}}
External links
- [http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/Isaac-held-homepage Isaac Held's Homepage] at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
- [http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/resultstest.php?author=1054 Isaac Held's bibliography] at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
- [http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held Isaac Held's blog] at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Held, Isaac}}
Category:University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumni
Category:American meteorologists
Category:American people of German-Jewish descent
Category:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors
Category:National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration personnel
Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences