doctoral_advisor thesis_year thesis_title awards nationality fields workplaces birth_date thesis_url known_for article_title name alma_mater
jule charney 1978 inertial stability and mesoscale convective systems carl-gustaf rossby research medal united states meteorology massachusetts institute of technology 21 april 1955 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/52840 dynamics , hurricanes kerry emanuel
 kerry emanuel massachusetts institute of technology
kerry emanuel

kerry andrew emanuel -lrb- born april 21 , 1955 -rrb- is an american professor of meteorology currently working at the massachusetts institute of technology in cambridge .
in particular he has specialized in atmospheric convection and the mechanisms acting to intensify hurricanes .
he was named one of the `` time '' 100 influential people of 2006 .
in 2007 , he was elected as a member of the u.s. national academy of sciences .
he hypothesized in 1994 about a superpowerful type of hurricane which could be formed if average sea surface temperature increased another 15c more than it 's ever been -lrb- see `` hypercane '' -rrb- .
in a march 2008 paper published in the `` bulletin of the american meteorological society '' , he put forward the conclusion that global warming is likely to increase the intensity but decrease the frequency of hurricane and cyclone activity .
gabriel vecchi , of noaa said of emanuel 's announcement , `` while his results do n't rule out the possibility that global warming has contributed to the recent increase in activity in the atlantic , they suggest that other factors -- possibly in addition to global warming -- are likely to have been substantial contributors to the observed increase in activity . ''
in 2013 , with other leading experts , he was co-author of an open letter to policy makers , which stated that `` continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity 's ability to avoid dangerous climate change . ''
