The Helmut E. Landsberg Award
Description
The Helmut E. Landsberg Award recognizes an individual or team for exemplary contributions to the fields of urban meteorology, climatology, or hydrology, including, but not restricted to, achievements through measurements or modeling that provide an improved understanding of atmospheric processes in urban environments, enhanced urban meteorological or air quality forecasting capabilities, advances in identifying and quantifying beneficial and adverse impacts in urban areas, or in recognition of service or applications in the field. Contributions may either be for a singular achievement or in recognition of sustained contributions over a period of many years.
The AMS Board on the Urban Environment serves as the selection committee which makes a recommendation for final approval by AMS Council.
Nomination Process
Thank you for your interest in submitting a nomination! AMS membership is not required to submit an award nomination. Nominations are due by 1 May. The nominator is responsible for uploading the entire nomination package.
The nominees for awards remain on the committee's active list for three years. You will be allowed to update an unsuccessful nomination at the beginning of the next award cycle.
Requirements
- citation (25 word maximum)
- bibliography (if appropriate) (3 page maximum)
- nomination letter (3 page maximum)
- nominee Curriculum Vitae (if appropriate) (2 pages maximum)
- three (3) letters of support (2 page maximum each)
Helmut Erich Landsberg (1906–1985)
Helmut Erich Landsberg was a noted and influential climatologist and was an important figure in meteorology and atmospheric science in education, public service and administration. He authored several notable works, particularly in the field of particulate matter and its influence on air pollution and human health. Landsberg also was the first scientist writing in English on the use of statistical analysis in the field of climatology and implemented this type of information and analysis in aiding military operations during World War II.
Landsberg received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt in Germany and then moved to the United States in 1934 to teach geophysics and meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. While there, he offered a graduate seminar on bioclimatic problems, the first such graduate course to be taught in the United States. He was subsequently appointed to the faculties of the University of Chicago (1941) and the University of Maryland (1967), with which he continued to be affiliated until his death. At Maryland, he served as first Director of the Graduate Program in Meteorology (later named the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science), and of the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics.
In 1949, Landsberg was appointed to the Air Pollution Committee by US President Harry S. Truman, where he helped to shape US air pollution regulations. From 1954-1967, he served at the US Weather Bureau as Director of the Office of Climatology.
Landsberg's early publications dealt with earthquakes, the impact of weather on aviation, atmospheric suspensions and, most notably, cloud condensation nuclei. He published a ground-breaking work on condensation nuclei, the submicrometer-sized particles in the air about which clouds form, which was the first to examine the role such particulate matter plays on air pollution and the degree to which it is retained in the respiratory system. This investigation was the basis of his later work on the impact of urbanization on climate.