astronomy

Roger Daley

Roger Daley is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roger Daley rather than just read about it. In short: Roger Willis Daley (January 25, 1943 – August 29, 2001) was a British meteorologist known particularly for his work on data assimilation. Early life Daley was born in Purley, England on January 25, 1943, but moved with his parents to Canada at an early age.

Key takeaways

Roger Daley belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roger Daley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roger Daley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roger Willis Daley (January 25, 1943 – August 29, 2001) was a British meteorologist known particularly for his work on data assimilation.

Early life Daley was born in Purley, England on January 25, 1943, but moved with his parents to Canada at an early age. He studied at the University of British Columbia as an undergraduate and completed PhD studies at McGill University in 1971 where he was the student of Phil Merilees (Superintendent of NRL Marine Meteorology Division, 1997–2002).

Career After 2 years as a postdoc in Denmark, Daley took a position at the numerical weather prediction research center in Montreal where he was instrumental in the development of the first operational weather model (implemented in 1976) based on the spectral transform method for the globe. This method is now the standard in most operational centers around the world, including the Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center (FNMOC) in Monterey. In 1977, Daley accepted a position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, where he carried out research on non-linear normal mode initialization and other outstanding problems in the dynamics of large-scale atmospheric flow particularly as they related to global numerical weather prediction. He also became much more interested in the science of data assimilation. During this period, Daley was author or co-author on many publications in the refereed literature and was honored by receiving the NCAR outstanding publication award. Nevertheless, he did not neglect his interest in operational applications. He was involved in implementation of non-linear normal mode initialization for baroclinic models at the Canadian Meteorological Centre in Canada and at Météo-France in Paris; and he implemented an innovative error covariance formulation at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the United Kingdom. From 1985 until 1995, Daley held a position of Senior Scientist with the Meteorological Service of Canada in Toronto. His personal scientific work concentrated on the writing of a book entitled Atmospheric Data Assimilation, which was published in 1991. By the time he left Canada in 1995, he was firmly established as a world leader in data assimilation not only through his comprehensive book but also in terms of creative new developments in the theory and practice of data assimilation. Daley was largely responsible for elevating data assimilation to be a prestigious field of scientific enquiry. Throughout his career, Daley was in demand as a consultant, as a scientific visitor and adjunct professor. He held visiting appointments at ECMWF; Météo-France; Florida State University and The Meteorological Institute of Stockholm University. He was an adjunct professor at McGill University, Colorado State University and the Naval Postgraduate School and a Scientist Emeritus with the Meteorological Service of Canada. He also lectured extensively throughout the world including a series of lectures in Beijing, China; as a principal lecturer at the 1990 Summer Colloquium at NCAR and at the University of Toulon in France. He served on many important international scientific committees, carrying out scientific reviews and serving as member of journal editorial boards of the AMS and the Swedish Geophysical Society. He was Chief Editor for the CMOS journal Atmosphere-Ocean from 1989 to 1992. Daley received many honors during his career. From the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) he received the Prize in Applied Meteorology in 1975 and the President's Prize in 1982. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1993 and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 1997. In 1995, Daley accepted a position as a UCAR Distinguished Scientific Visitor at the Marine Meteorology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, in Monterey, California, and moved his family to the Carmel Valley. Daley took on a project, in close partnership with Ed Barker, to design and construct a three-dimensional variational data assimilation system specifically meant to serve the needs of the US Navy. Over a period of 5 years, he and Ed have carefully built and tested this system. It is known as the NRL Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System, or NAVDAS, and went operational at FNMOC and at Navy regional METOC centers in 2003. NAVDAS is designed to meet data assimilation needs of both global models and regional nested models and holds great promise to provide a substantial increase in Navy model prediction accuracy. In January 2001, the American Meteorological Society recognized Daley's achievements by awarding him the prestigious Jule Charney Medal for a lifetime of outstanding scientific achievement. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center also recognized Daley's achievements by naming their new SGI Origin 3800 supercomputer after him. This 512-processor computer went into service at Goddard's Data Assimilation Office in 2001 to create significantly improved models of how the Earth's climate works.

Death Daley died at his home in Carmel Valley, California on August 29, 2001.

References

External links Official obituary at NRL, accessed 2007-06-17 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Navy.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roger Daley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roger Daley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roger Daley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roger Daley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roger Daley

In research: Roger Daley appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roger Daley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roger Daley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1943 births, 2001 deaths, British meteorologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roger Daley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Roger Daley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roger Daley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roger Daley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roger Daley in simple terms?

Roger Willis Daley (January 25, 1943 – August 29, 2001) was a British meteorologist known particularly for his work on data assimilation. Early life Daley was born in Purley, England on January 25, 1943, but moved with his parents to Canada at an early age.

Why does Roger Daley matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roger Daley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roger Daley.