Rossby, Carl-Gustaf Arvid

Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby, (born Dec. 28, 1898, Stockholm, Swed.—died Aug. 19, 1957, Stockholm), Swedish American meteorologist whose innovations in the study of large-scale air movement and introduction of the equations describing atmospheric motion were largely responsible for the rapid development of meteorology as a science.

Rossby moved to the United States in 1926, where he worked in Washington, D.C., as a fellow of the American-Scandinavian Foundation for Research at the U.S. Weather Bureau. In 1928 he became professor and head of the department of meteorology (the first in the United States) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. There he made important contributions to the understanding of heat exchange in air masses and atmospheric turbulence and investigated oceanography to study the relationships between ocean currents and their effects on the atmosphere.

Rossby became a U.S. citizen in 1938. One year later he became assistant chief of the Weather Bureau in charge of research and education and began his studies of the general circulation of the atmosphere. He became chairman of the department of meteorology at the University of Chicago in 1941. In his studies he identified sinusoidal waves, now known as Rossby waves, in the polar jet stream. He also developed the theory of Rossby wave movement. He worked on mathematical models for weather prediction and introduced the Rossby equations, which were used in 1950 with an advanced electronic computer to forecast the weather.

In 1950 Rossby returned to Sweden to work with the Institute of Meteorology, which he founded in connection with the University of Stockholm. From 1954 to 1957 he was instrumental in arousing interest in atmospheric chemistry and the interaction of airborne chemicals with the land and the sea.