Roland Stull

Biography

Professor: UBC Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences (2006-now) Professor: UBC 2/3 Earth & Ocean Sciences, and 1/3 Geography (1999-2006) Professor: UBC Geography (1995-1999) Visiting Scientist: Netherlands (1986), Germany (1988), Norway (1992) Professor, Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1989-1995) Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1985-1989) Asst. Prof., Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1979-1985) Adjunct. Asst. Prof., Atmos. Sci. Program, Creighton Univ., Nebraska (1977-1979) Numerical Prediction Meteorologist, Nebraska (1975-1979) Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) - USA Certified Flight Instructor (CFII) - USA Fellow of the American Meteorological Society Fellow of the Canadian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Winner of Killam Teaching Prize - Canada Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (1975) BS.Ch.E. in Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (1971) Professor: UBC Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences (2006-now) Professor: UBC 2/3 Earth & Ocean Sciences, and 1/3 Geography (1999-2006) Professor: UBC Geography (1995-1999) Visiting Scientist: Netherlands (1986), Germany (1988), Norway (1992) Professor, Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1989-1995) Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1985-1989) Asst. Prof., Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (1979-1985) Adjunct. Asst. Prof., Atmos. Sci. Program, Creighton Univ., Nebraska (1977-1979) Numerical Prediction Meteorologist, Nebraska (1975-1979) Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) - USA Certified Flight Instructor (CFII) - USA Fellow of the American Meteorological Society Fellow of the Canadian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Winner of Killam Teaching Prize - Canada Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (1975) BS.Ch.E. in Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (1971)

Research Interest

I am a Professor of Atmospheric Science. My focus is on numerical weather prediction and atmospheric boundary layers. As director of the Geophysical Disaster Computational Fluid Dynamics Centre, I focus on making high-resolution, real-time, operational numerical weather forecasts for western Canada. My 18-member team operates a 448-processor computer cluster, optimized for studying weather-related disasters in mountainous, coastal terrain. We also run some of our weather models on cloud computers. Our pure research includes predictability (ensemble prediction, data assimilation, Kalman filtering, boundary-layer parameterizations, etc.), natural disasters (forest firestorms, flooding precipitation, cyclones, snow avalanches, windstorms, air quality, tree blowdown etc.), weather-related energy sources (wind, hydroelectric, solar, and biomass power), transportation (highways, trolley, shipping, railroads), and special projects/events (2010 Winter Olympics, Project Firestorm, rocketsonde buoy development, forecasts for the Canadian Arctic). We also do applied research for various clients (Environment Canada, Parks Canada, Dept. of National Defense, many BC Ministries, BC Hydro, Regional Districts, railroads, highways, and other agencies and industries). Photos/posters giving an overview of our research are on the GDCFDC webpage. My team runs 3 mesoscale numerical models daily (MM5, WRF-ARW, WRF-NMM), initialized from GFS, NAM, GEM, and NAVGEM data, with our horizontal grid spacing down to 1.3 km. We also run the Emergency Weather Net, which collects, archives, plots, and uses surface weather-station data from over 800 locations in and near BC every hour. To test and improve the numerical forecasts, we deploy weather instruments and conduct field research.