Position and Research Expertise

Brian Mapes is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. Mapes is an expert on atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics, especially interactions between cloudy convection and larger-scale weather patterns.

Teaching and Mentoring

Mapes teaches an undergraduate course in Weather Analysis, and graduate courses in Convective & Mesoscale Meteorology and Applied Data Analysis. He advises graduate students in both the Meteorology & Physical Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences graduate programs.

Scientific Research

Mapes does research aimed at understanding atmospheric cloudy convection and its role in the larger-scale flow. Since weather and climate impacts often come in the form of convective weather events, understanding the linkage is important – sometimes for better predictions, but sometimes just to better appreciate the limits of predictability. Tropical weather especially depends on convection, so some of his research projects focus on seasonal monsoons as well as traveling weather ‘waves’. Other projects are aimed at improving weather and climate models, which must represent convection and clouds in mathematics and in software codes. Since the data age presents growing opportunities to address information-dense 3-dimensional problems like this, Mapes also works to advance information technologies relevant to convection science.

Service at UM and for the Wider Scientific Community

Mapes is working to advance education as well as research. He is co-writing a textbook’s computer lab manual, as part of a larger effort to improve the software-mediated visual experiences that underpin knowledge gains by both students and researchers.

Brian Earle Mapes

Professor

University of Miami

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