A Family Tree of Tropical Meteorology's Academic Community and its Proposed Expansion

Abstract

f the American Meteorological Society's 30th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, in April 2012, an academic lineage (?family tree?) of that community was presented to document the history of contributors to the field on the anniversary. For every self-identified or colleague-identified tropical meteorology scientist, the year of the person's most senior degree, major professor or mentors of that degree, and institution of that degree were documented and graphically presented. This information was supplemented through mining of websites, libraries, news and journal articles, obituaries, and other various historical archives. This manuscript documents the genesis of the family tree, the overall history represented by it, some statistics represented by the current incarnation, colorful personal stories that have come forward during its development, and plans for its expansion to the broader meteorology community.