Roland Madden

Biography Madden was born on May 8, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Edison Park in northwest Chicago and attended St. Juliana’s Grammar School and Fenwick High School He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Loyola University Chicago in 1961. In 1967, he was appointed staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado where he worked for 35 years,

Career highlights Over the course of his career, Madden authored over 100 research publications, technical reports, and proceedings. He is perhaps best known for his discovery in 1971 with Paul Julian of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and the comprehensive description of the phenomenon in 1972. The MJO is an eastward moving atmospheric disturbance that traverses the planet in the tropics with a period of 30–60 days, on average. The MJO is the main intra-seasonal fluctuation explaining weather in the tropics, and it continues to be studied broadly.

Selected areas of important contributions (and related publications) in addition to the MJO The introduction of an analysis of variance approach to estimate the potential long-range predictability of pressure, temperature, and precipitation; The first estimates of the time of emergence of warming due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide; The first estimates relating MJO tropical wind stress and the rotation of the earth; The first quantitative measures of the effects of imperfect spatial and temporal sampling on estimates of the global mean temperature; and The first comprehensive quantitative estimates of the effect of aliasing.

Madden continues to work and publish as an NCAR Senior Scientist Emeritus. His most recent publication presents new evidence of the Rossby-Haurwitz waves and appeared in 2019.

Selected publications