Trevor McDougall

{{Infobox scientist

| honorific_prefix = Professor

|name = Trevor McDougall

|birth_name = Trevor John McDougall

|honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100%|AC|FRS|FAA}} FAGU {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FInstP}} {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100%|FRSN}}

|image=Trevor-McDougall.jpg

|birth_date= {{birth date and age|1952|7|1|df=y}}{{Who's Who | title=McDougall, Prof. Trevor John | id=U256695 | year = 2017|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.256695 | edition = online | access-date=2018-01-19|author= }}

|birth_place= Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

|education = Unley High School

|fields = {{Plainlist |

}}

|awards={{Plainlist |

Australian Laureate Fellowship (2015),{{cite news |url=https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/three-scientists-awarded-laureate-fellowships |title=Three scientists awarded Laureate Fellowships |work=University of New South Wales |date=23 June 2015 |last=Smith |first=Deborah |access-date=3 May 2020 }}
Companion of the Order of Australia (2018),
Prime Minister's Prize for Science (2022)

}}

|alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

University of Adelaide (BEng)
University of Cambridge (PhD)

}}

|doctoral_advisors = {{Plainlist|

}}

| workplaces = University of New South Wales

}}

Trevor John McDougall is an Australian physical oceanographer specialising in ocean mixing and the thermodynamics of seawater. He is Emeritus Scientia Professor of Ocean Physics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and is Past President of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

Education

After attending Unley High School in Adelaide, South Australia, McDougall went to St Mark's College (University of Adelaide) and graduated from the University of Adelaide in Mechanical Engineering in 1973. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 from the University of Cambridge and a Graduate Diploma in Economics from the Australian National University in 1982.

Research and career

McDougall undertook his PhD studies in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and St John's College, Cambridge of the University of Cambridge where he was supervised by Professors Stewart Turner and Paul Linden. In 1978 he returned to Australia on a Queen's Fellowship in Marine Science at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University (ANU). After five years at ANU he was appointed to CSIRO in Hobart as a physical oceanographer. Since 2012 he has been Scientia Professor of Ocean Physics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

McDougall's research in physical oceanography has provided insight to how seawater mixes under different conditions, which is important for understanding climate change.{{cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/trevor-mcdougall-11925|title=Trevor McDougall|publisher=Royal Society|location=London}} One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." {{cite web |url=https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ |title=Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies |accessdate=2016-03-09 |url-status=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710134855/https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ |archivedate=2017-07-10 }}, "Intellectual property rights" The ocean and the atmosphere play roughly equal roles in transporting heat from the equatorial region to the poles, and McDougall's research is concerned with how the ocean reduces the equator-to-pole temperature differences, thus making Earth habitable.

McDougall is known for developing, together with David Jackett, an algorithm for defining neutral density surfaces. These are the surfaces along which swirling ocean eddies — that are 10–500 kilometres wide and persist for many months — mix. The rate of turbulent mixing in the ocean is a factor of ten million times stronger along "density" surfaces than in the direction across these surfaces.{{cite journal | last1=Jackett | first1=David R. | last2=McDougall | first2=Trevor J. | title=A Neutral Density Variable for the World's Oceans | journal=Journal of Physical Oceanography | publisher=American Meteorological Society | volume=27 | issue=2 | year=1997 | issn=0022-3670 | doi=10.1175/1520-0485(1997)027<0237:andvft>2.0.co;2 | pages=237–263| bibcode=1997JPO....27..237J | doi-access=free }} The accurate modelling of the ocean’s role in climate relies on being able to accurately define and evaluate these surfaces. McDougall has also made significant contributions to incorporating the concepts of mixing and heat into ocean models.{{cite journal | last1=McDougall | first1=Trevor J. | last2=McIntosh | first2=Peter C. | title=The temporal-residual-mean velocity. Part II: Isopycnal interpretation and the tracer and momentum equations | journal=Journal of Physical Oceanography | publisher=American Meteorological Society | volume=31 | issue=5 | year=2001 | issn=0022-3670 | doi=10.1175/1520-0485(2001)031<1222:TTRMVP>2.0.CO;2 | pages=1222–1246| bibcode=2001JPO....31.1222M | doi-access=free }}

He was president of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO){{cite web|url=https://iapso-ocean.org/about-iapso/information/executive-bureau-and-executive-committee-cb.html|title=Bureau and Executive Committee of IAPSO|website=iapso-ocean.org}} of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics from 2019-2023 and is past president for 2023-2027. He chaired the working group of SCOR and IAPSO that developed the international standard definitions of the thermodynamic properties of seawater, humid air, and ice (TEOS-10, Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater - 2010), which were adopted by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in 2009.{{cite web|url=http://www.teos-10.org/about_WG127.htm|title=Thermodynamic Equation of SeaWater TEOS-10|website=www.teos-10.org}}

Awards and honours

McDougall was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012. He is also a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1997), the CSIRO (2007), the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (2004), the Institute of Physics (UK) (2012), the Royal Society of New South Wales (2015),{{Cite web|url=https://www.royalsoc.org.au/about-us/fellows/|title = Fellows of the Royal Society of New South Wales|date = 16 December 2022}} the American Geophysical Union (2018),{{cite web|url=https://eos.org/agu-news/2018-class-of-agu-fellows-announced|title=2018 AGU Fellows announced|website=eos.org/agu-news/2018-class-of-agu-fellows-announced|date=9 August 2018}} and the [https://iugg.org/awards/conferred-fellow/ International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (2023)]. His other awards include:

[https://www.egu.eu/awards-medals/alfred-wegener/ Alfred Wegener Medal], 2025, awarded by the European Geosciences Union, For outstanding contributions to ocean science that have fundamentally changed how we understand the ocean and its role in shaping the Earth’s climate
[https://www.chiefscientist.nsw.gov.au/events/nsw-premiers-prizes-for-science-and-engineering/2023-nsw-scientist-of-the-year/ 2023 NSW Scientist of the Year], awarded by the Premier of New South Wales, Australia.
Prime Minister's Prize for Science, 2022,{{Cite web |last=Lu |first=Donna |date=2022-11-21 |title=Trevor McDougall wins $250,000 science prize for researching 'thermal flywheel' of climate system |url=https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/22/trevor-mcdougall-wins-250000-science-prize-for-researching-thermal-flywheel-of-climate-system |access-date=2022-11-21 |website=The Guardian |language=en}} "What's the Ocean got to do with Climate Change?", a Public Lecture on 29 June 2023 at the University of New South Wales, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJXmTEw3Opg For his discovery of four new ocean mixing processes and his work to define the thermodynamic properties of seawater
Prize of Excellence, [https://www.geomar.de/news/article/petersen-exzellenzprofessur-fuer-australischen-ozeanographen Werner Petersen Foundation], Germany, 2018.
100px Companion of the Order of Australia in 2018 for eminent service to science, and to education, particularly in the area of ocean thermodynamics, as an academic, and researcher, to furthering the understanding of climate science, and as a mentor of young scientists.{{Cite news|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-26/meet-the-recipients-of-this-years-australia-day-honours-list/9362414|title=Meet the recipients of the January 2018 Australia Day Honours|work=ABC|access-date=2018-01-26|language=en-US}}
[https://www.chiefscientist.nsw.gov.au/events/nsw-premiers-prizes-for-science-and-engineering/previous-winners New South Wales Premier's Prize for Excellence in Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Chemistry and Physics, 2017].{{Cite web|url=https://www.chiefscientist.nsw.gov.au/events/nsw-premiers-prizes-for-science-and-engineering/previous-winners/|title = recipients of NSW Premier's Prize|date = 16 December 2022}}
John Conrad Jaeger Medal 2015, awarded by the Australian Academy of Science.{{Cite web|url=https://www.science.org.au/supporting-science/awards-and-opportunities/jaeger-medal/|title = recipients of Jaeger Medal|date = 16 December 2022}}
Henry Houghton chair for visiting senior earth scientists, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015{{Cite web|url=http://paocweb.mit.edu/resources/houghton-fund/|title = Houghton Fund MIT|date = 16 December 2022}}
Australian Laureate Fellowship, 2015, awarded by the Australian Research Council
[https://rst.org.au/awards/past-recipients/ Royal Society of Tasmania Medal] 2013, awarded by the Royal Society of Tasmania.
Prince Albert I Medal, 2011, awarded by the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) of the IUGG for outstanding contributions to the advancement of the physical and/or chemical sciences of the ocean.
Anton Bruun Medal, awarded by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, 2009.
A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences, presented by the Royal Society of Canada, 2005.
100px Centenary Medal, 2001.[https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1127475 It's an Honour], Centenary Medal, 1 January 2001, Citation: For service to Australian society and science in marine science. For service to Australian society and science in marine science.
[https://rst.org.au/awards/past-recipients/ M. R. Banks Medal], awarded by the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1998.{{cite web | url=https://rst.org.au/awards/past-recipients/ | title=Past Recipients }}
Humboldt Prize, given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, 1997.
David Rivett Medal, awarded to a CSIRO Scientist who is less than 40 years old, 1992.{{Cite web|url=https://csiropedia.csiro.au/rivett-sir-albert-cherbury-david/|title = Sir Albert Cherbury David Rivett [1885-1961]|date = 13 January 2015}}
[https://www.science.org.au/opportunities-scientists/recognition/honorific-awards/early-career-awards/frederick-white-medal Frederick White Prize], awarded by the Australian Academy of Science, 1988.
J. T. Knight Prize, 1976, awarded by the University of Cambridge.
South Australian Engineering Design Award, with [https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/prof-garry-l-brown Dr Garry L. Brown], awarded by Engineers Australia, 1975.