Mesoscale-Convective Processes in the Atmosphere

Robert J. Trapp received his PhD in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 1994. He was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow and then was appointed as a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Part of this appointment was spent at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Trapp joined the faculty at Purdue University in 2003: he is currently Professor and Associated Head of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He holds the distinction as a University Faculty Scholar, awarded to outstanding faculty members who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction. Trapp has also been recognized as an Outstanding Teacher in the College of Science and has appeared on his departmental teaching honor roll in every semester of his tenure at Purdue. He is an expert on convective storms, their attendant hazards and their two-way interaction with the larger-scale atmosphere.

1. The atmospheric mesoscale; 2. Theoretical foundations; 3. Observations and mesoscale data analysis; 4. Mesoscale numerical modeling; 5. The initiation of deep convective clouds; 6. Elemental convective processes; 7. Supercells: a special class of long-lived rotating convective storms; 8. Mesoscale convective systems; 9. Interactions and feedbacks; 10. Mesoscale predictability and prediction.