Awarded the 2019 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement — an award sometimes described as the “Nobel Prize for the environment.”The prize honors Washington’s pioneering work modeling Earth’s climate.

He was second African American ever to receive a doctorate in meteorology, earning his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1964,  and he developed one of the first computer models of Earth’s climate.in collaboration with his NCAR colleague Akira Kasahara. Washington’s models were also critical in the landmark 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

“Dr. Washington literally wrote the earliest book on climate modeling

Dr.Warren Morton Washington is the second African American to earn a doctorate degree in atmospheric sciences. He is senior scientist and a section head at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where he served as director of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division from 1987 to 1995. He has been associated with the center since 1963. A meteorologist, he specializes in computer modeling of the earth’s climate, using such models to simulate future climate change. His book, An Introduction to Three-Dimensional Climate Modeling (with Claire Parkinson), is a standard reference in the field. The Odyssey in Climate Modeling, Global Warming, and Advising Five Presidents. He is the recipient of the 2007 Nobel peace prize.

Dr. Warren Morton Washington was born August 28, 1936, in Portland, Oregon, to Edwin Washington Jr. Was a college graduate and worked as a Pullman car waiter. His mother Dorothy Grace Washington studied music at Oregon University and was a Practical Nurse

J. Scott Applewhite/AP