astronomy

Roland Madden

Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden rather than just read about it. In short: Roland Aloysius Madden, an American meteorologist, was a staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) from 1967 to 2002. His research centers on diagnostic studies of the atmosphere.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Roland Aloysius Madden, an American meteorologist, was a staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) from 1967 to 2002. His research centers on diagnostic studies of the atmosphere. Madden is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and a recipient of the 2002 Jule G. Charney Award of the AMS.

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. That same year, he joined the United States Air Force where he served for four years as Duty Forecaster at Patrick Air Force Base and Assistant Staff Meteorologist at Cape Canaveral. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in meteorology from the University of Chicago in 1967 and Colorado State University in 1978 respectively. In 1967, he was appointed staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado where he worked for 35 years, most recently as a member of the Climate Analysis Section in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division. Madden spent periods of time as an invited scientist at a variety of institutions, including the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Free University of Berlin, Naval Postgraduate School, Stockholm University, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Madden retired from NCAR in 2002. He was married to Mary Agnes (née Ruh) Madden (1939–2019) for fifty-seven years, and the couple has four children.

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 include:

The first estimates of the composition of cloud clusters in the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) area; 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

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roland Madden

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden

In research: Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden 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: Roland Madden is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1938 births, American meteorologists, Colorado State University alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roland Madden in simple terms?

Why does Roland Madden 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 Roland Madden?

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 Roland Madden.