Phillips, Norman, 1989-10-02

Oral history interview with Norman A. Phillips, 1989. Interviewed by Anthony Hollingsworth, Warren Washington, Joseph Tribbia, and Akira Kasahara. 4 sound cassettes (ca. 6 hrs.) : analog, mono + transcript (78 pgs.). AMS 39-42; two physical versions (one master, one copy). Forms part of American Meteorological Society Oral History Project. Topics covered: family background and education; service as aviation cadet and in a Weather Service squadron in the Azores during World War II; education under Victor Starr, Carl-Gustav Rossby, Erik Palmen, and George Platzman; collaboration on the second ENIAC expedition; as pioneer in numerical weather prediction at the Institute for Advanced Study, and work on the two-layer model; von Neumann's role in the genesis of the Electronic Computer Project; appointment by Rossby to the Institute of Meteorology in Stockholm; collaboration with Jule Charney; plan for a general circulation experiment; consulting work for the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit; discusses his move to MIT, and his tenure as department chair; his graduate students at MIT; editorship of JAS; work with Walter Munk and others; departure from MIT to do research on the nested-grid model at NMC; involvement with FGGE; comments on the NESS data retrieval system; developments in analysis and assimilation; the influence of his work for the National Academy of Sciences; current work on the emergence of quasi-geostrophic theory; and his thoughts on the development of numerical weather prediction.