Phone: 970-491-8321 Fax: 970-491-8449 Email: johnson (at) atmos.colostate.edu Research Web Site Publications TOGA-COARE Data SCSMEX Data NAME Data

• Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science - 1975 - University of Washington - Seattle, WA
• M.S. in Geophysical Sciences - 1969 - University of Chicago - Chicago, IL
• B.S. in Physics - 1967 - Oregon State University - Corvallis, OR

Professor Johnson joined the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science in 1980 after completing over two years as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin. He served as a lead scientist in the TOGA-COARE, SCSMEX, and NAME field expeditions.

Professor Johnson's research focuses primarily on atmospheric convection and the planetary boundary layer. Current efforts intend to form a better understanding of midlatiture and tropical mesoscale convective systems and the nature of convection in the equatorial Western Pacific, Asian, and North American monsoon regions.

Professor Johnson's research group conducts studies of midlatitude mesoscale convective systems from both observational and modeling approaches. The observational approach involves using atmospheric sounding, radar, surface, and satellite data. The modeling approach ranges in complexity from simple linear dynamical models to complex mesoscale cloud models. The scientific issues being addressed include the organization and evolution of mesoscale convective systems, the dependence of such systems on environmental wind and thermodynamic profiles, impact on the atmospheric boundary layer, surface pressure effects, flash floods, and bow echoes.

Another research focus involves tropical convection. Convective clouds in the tropics play a central role in the global atmospheric circulation. Professor Johnson's research group investigates the full spectrum of tropical convective clouds ranging from shallow cumulus to cumulus congestus to cumulonimbus and their impact on tropical circulations from diurnal to monthly time scales. Observations from recent tropical field campaigns are used in these studies. In addition, his research group is making efforts to unravel the mysteries of the complex coupling between convective clouds, marine boundary layer, and ocean in the tropical regions of the Pacific Ocean, South China Sea, and Indian Ocean.

Professor Johnson's last area of research involves the Asian monsoon which affects well over half of the world's population. While monsoon rains arrive virtually every year, important year-to-year variations exist in the areas of duration, precipitation amounts, and geographical distribution of rainfall. Moreover, the properties of the East Asian monsoon that affects China, Taiwan, and Japan are quite distinct from those of the Indian monsoon. Professor Johnson's research group studies the former using data from the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX). The group focuses particularly on the characteristics of the onset of the East Asian monsoon, the nature of convection over the South China Sea at the time of onset, and the evolution of the latent heating distributions over Asia throughout the monsoon.

• TOGA-COARE Field Experiment - Lead Scientist
• SCSMEX Field Experiment - Lead Scientist
• NAME Field Experiment - Lead Scientist
• Journal of Atmospheric Science - Co-Chief Editor
• UCAR Board of Trustees - Member
• CLIVAR SSC - Panel Member
• American Meteorological Society (AMS) - Fellow
• USWRP - Science Advisory Committee
• NAME - Scientific Working Group
• National Science Foundation - Special Creativity Award