Staff Profile

Robert Weller

Preferred Name: Robert A Weller

SENIOR SCIENTIST

PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY

Email: rweller@whoi.edu

Phone: 508 289 2487

Lab/Group Site: http://uop.whoi.edu/

Some Info Robert Weller is a Senior Scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he formerly served as director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research and past Chair of the Physical Oceanography Department. His research focuses on atmospheric forcing, air-sea interaction, prediction of upper ocean variability, and the ocean’s role in climate. Dr. Weller has been a pioneer in developing tools and technologies that enable scientists to investigate upper ocean processes on scales from meters to tens of kilometers and with accuracy never before available. Dr. Weller has been on multiple mooring deployment cruises and has practical experience with ocean observation instruments. He served as co-chair of the U.S. Climate Variability and Change (CLIVAR) Scientific Steering Group and a member of the international CLIVAR Scientific Steering Group. He served on the WMO/IOC international Ocean Observing Panel for Climate and serves on the NOAA Climate Observing System Council and Climate Working Group. He co-chaired OceanSITES, an action group under the international Joint Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology, that works to advocate and coordinate sustained time series observations in the global ocean. He has served on several National Academies committees, including the Committee on Implementation of a Seafloor Observatory Network for Oceanographic Research, the Committee for Review of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan, and the Committee on Utilization of Environmental Satellite Data. He has also co-chaired the Committee on Sustaining Ocean Observations to Understand Future Changes in Earth’s Climate and chaired the Committee on Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability. Dr. Weller received his A.B. in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard University and Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Education

A.B. Harvard University, 1972, Engineering and Applied Physics
Ph.D. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1978, Physical Oceanography

Research Interests

Wind-forced motion in the upper ocean; mixed layer dynamics; upper ocean velocity structure studies; air-sea interaction; development of current meters and surface meteorological instrumentation for air/sea experiments; air-sea fluxes; implementation of the global ocean observing system.