McWilliams received his degrees in Applied Mathematics: a B.S. (with
honors) in 1968 from Caltech and a M.S. in 1969 and Ph.D. in 1971 from
Harvard. After holding a Research Fellowship in Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics at Harvard (1971-74), he worked at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where he became a Senior Scientist in
1980. In 1994 he became the Louis Slichter Professor of Earth Sciences
in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Institute for
Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA, while retaining a part-time
appointment at NCAR. In 2002, he was elected to the National Academy
of Sciences.
McWilliams' primary areas of scientific research have been the fluid
dynamics of Earth's oceans and atmosphere, both their theory and
computational modeling. Particular subjects include the maintenance of
the general circulations; climate dynamics; geostrophically and
cyclostrophically balanced (or slow manifold) dynamics in rotating,
stratified fluids; vortex dynamics; planetary boundary layers;
planetary-scale thermohaline convection; the roles of coherent
structures of turbulent flows in geophysical and astrophysical
regimes; numerical methods; statistical estimation theory; and coastal
ocean modeling.
In the past several years he has helped develop a three-dimensional
coastal ocean model of the U.S. West Coast that incorporates the
physical oceanographic and biogeochemical aspects of the coastal
circulation. This model is being used to interpret coastal phenomena,
diagnose historical variability in relation to observational data, and
assess future possibilities.
Related Projects:
Center for Earth Systems
Research
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