Roger Daley

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Roger Willis Daley, UCAR Distinguished Scientific Visitor at the Marine Meteorology Division in Monterey, died at his home in Carmel Valley, California, August 29, 2001. 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, interestingly enough, the student of Phil Merilees (Superintendent of NRL Marine Meteorology Division, 1997-2002).

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 Meteo-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. This book is now a classic. In writing the book, Daley encountered many vexing difficulties and inconsistencies with the approaches used in operational data assimilation. He proceeded to tackle and resolve many of those questions. By the time he left Canada in 1995, he was firmly established as a world leader in data assimilation through his comprehensive book, but also in terms of creative new developments in the theory and practice of data assimilation. Some scientists believe that 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; Meteo-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 gave unstintingly of his time and energy to professional activities, serving 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 1989-1992. 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 (Code 7531), 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 it is poised to transition to operations at FNMOC and at Navy regional METOC centers. 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.

Daley continued to innovate as he continued to implement. He was full of ideas and very active in the investigation of an accelerated cycling representer method as a new approach to four-dimensional data assimilation. His colleagues at NRL Monterey greatly admired his ability to be equally productive in the "nitty-gritty" computer programming of components of NAVDAS as he was in the abstract matrix algebra of data assimilation theory. He provided great inspiration for his scientific colleagues at NRL. In the words of Ron Gelaro, a former NRL Monterey researcher, " Roger not only taught you science, he taught you how to be a scientist ". In the words of Tom Rosmond, a senior scientist , "…Roger's understanding and depth of knowledge in our discipline was unmatched as can be seen by the large number of us who went to him for counsel on a wide range of topics. A consequence of this will be that his legacy will continue to have a profound effect on NRL Monterey for years to come, both because of his own work and the influence he has had on all of us." In the words of Nancy Baker, who completed her PhD in 2000 under Daley's tutelage, "One of Roger's most unique [sic] talents as a scientist was his ability to take a large and complex problem, and reduce it to a much simpler problem that still retains the pertinent physics or math. This powerful approach allowed him to readily examine the relevant parameters and understand the problem. Roger frequently used this approach in his development of our new data assimilation system." Perhaps Jim Doyle best summarized our feelings about Roger when he said "… having Roger on your science team is like having Michael Jordan on your high school basketball team!" In January 2001, the American Meteorological Society recognized what we knew so well and awarded him the prestigiousJules Charney Medal for a lifetime of outstanding scientific achievement.

People at NRL in Monterey also knew of his personal qualities. In the words of his closest colleague, Ed Barker; " Besides being one of the world's top scientists, Roger was a compassionate man and could always be counted on for support and assistance." He is sorely missed by all his colleagues and friends at NRL in Monterey.

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