Arnt Eliassen

A pioneer in the use of numerical analysis and computers for weather forecasting, Eliassen was a Norwegian meteorologist who conducted early pioneer work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, together with John von Neumann. His areas of research included free and thermally driven circulations, frontogenesis, and shear and gravitational-acoustic wave propagation in stratified media.

Eliassen received the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal in 1964 for his many important contributions to dynamical meteorology. He received the very prestigious Balzan Prize in 1996 "For his fundamental contributions to dynamic meteorology that have influenced and stimulated progress in this science during the past fifty years."

In "Turing's Cathedral" by George Dyson it is noted, "A rotating contingent of Norwegian meteorologists, led by Arnt Eliassen and Ragnar Fjørtoft, joined the group. Charney became the liaison between the hands-on experience of the Norwegian forecasters and the mathematical world of Von Neumann."