Pioneering meteorologist Joanne Simpson died last week in Washington, aged 86, NASA has announced.
Simpson was the first woman to earn a doctorate in meteorology, in 1949, and worked on some of the most important questions in the field. In 1979 she joined NASA as chief of the Severe Storms Branch of NASA’s Laboratory for Atmosphere.
“When I first got to NASA, I realized I could talk science in the ladies’ room. This was something new in my career, to find three or four other scientists in the ladies’ room,” she told USA Today.
Until recently she was chief scientist emeritus for the Meteorology, Earth Sun Exploration Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
“In addition to being excited and enthusiastic about her own research, she was always helping students to become scientists. Many are practicing in the field today because of her guidance and encouragement,” said Dorothy Zukor, Deputy Director of Earth Sciences at Goddard.
“She has left a true legacy, not only from her own work but for the future of the field.”
In addition to serving as president of the American Meteorological Society, she received the society’s highest honour – the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal – in 1983 “for her outstanding contributions to our understanding of convective clouds, and the role of convection in the formation and maintenance of hurricanes and other wind systems over tropical oceans”.
She told USA Today that the award made her think, “it isn’t really so ridiculous that I did all of this. I’m not really a freak; I am a member of the community.”
She was also involved in perhaps one of the most awesome experiments ever: NASA’s ‘Project Stormfury’ which aimed to reduce the strength of hurricanes. This involved Simpson testing her theories about cloud formation by throwing silver iodide into the atmosphere and was heavily involved in subsequently kick-starting the science of weather modification.
“We wrote an article and a furore broke loose,” said Simpson (NASA biog). “I was totally unaware of the level of emotion and hostility that was directed against anything that had to do with cloud seeding.”
She was sometimes referred to as a climate change skeptic but reading her actual writings, a more nuanced position is clear.
“Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable,” she wrote in 2008. “But as a scientist I remain skeptical.”
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“I think I can now retire as a role model, since there are so many really great younger women meteorologists—many of whom have children, too—who are serving that function extremely well.”
Simpson, from the NASA extended biography.
“She was a giant in her field. It’s easy to say that a woman with her brain could have gone into medicine, discovered the cure for cancer or made millions of dollars. Possibly she did more… as meteorologists who work for the government are grossly underpaid and often discover facts that help protect the multitudes. We owe them and yet we rarely hear about them as they continue their work every day quietly.”
“This was a woman who – through her research – touched the lives of millions of people and continues to do so every time we hear a weather report.”
“There is zero doubt that there has never been a more capable woman in meteorology, and she would also be in the top five of all meteorologists in history, no matter the gender.”
– Greg Holland, director of the Earth Systems Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (Washington Post).
Image top: NASA
Image lower: Simpson in front of Navy flying boat on loan to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute / Joanne Simpson and the Schlesinger Library