For outstanding contributions to understanding of tropical meteorology and climate

Kenneth Carslaw, Meredith Hastings, Adam Sobel, and Rodney J. Weber received 2014 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Awards at the 2014 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, held 15–19 December in San Francisco, Calif. The award recognizes "research contributions by exceptional mid-career scientists in the fields of atmospheric and climate sciences."  

We congratulate Dr. Adam Sobel, winner of a 2014 Ascent Award “for fundamental contributions leading to a better understanding of the dynamics of the tropical atmosphere.”

—Peter Webster, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

I wish to thank Professor Webster and the Atmospheric Sciences section awards committee for selecting me for this award and also those who nominated me for it. It’s a great honor, and I am humbled to be in the company of previous recipients. It takes a village, as the cliché goes. I learned the field first and foremost from my Ph.D. advisor, Alan Plumb, and my postdoctoral advisor, Chris Bretherton. Kerry Emanuel, Isaac Held, and David Neelin also stand out as mentors from whom I’ve been privileged to learn over the years. Lorenzo Polvani and Mark Cane have been my most important mentors and colleagues at Columbia, guiding me through academic life since I arrived here 15 years ago. Many more colleagues than I can name at my two Columbia homes—the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Math in Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—have made this a wonderful place to go from junior to “midcareer.” I have been especially fortunate, though, to be able to sustain long-term collaborative relationships with several people here in particular, especially Suzana Camargo and Michela Biasutti and, more recently, Michael Tippett and Shuguang Wang as well. Whatever success I have had in research over the last decade is due in large part to them, as well as to an outstanding series of postdocs and graduate students. I consider myself truly fortunate for having had the opportunity to work with scientists of this exceptional caliber. I hope that we are able to keep working together for many more years. Most of all, I thank my family: my parents and sister; my wife, Marit Larson; and our sons, Eli and Samuel, for their love and support. —Adam Sobel, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.