J. Stewart Marshall

J. Stewart Marshall
Born	18 July 1911  Welland
Died	20 March 1992  (aged 80) Montreal
Alma mater	Queen's University at Kingston University of Cambridge
Occupation	Physicist professor
Employer	McGill University National Research Council Canada
Awards	Patterson Medal (1961)

John Stewart Marshall (18 July 1911 – 20 March 1992) was a Canadian physicist and meteorologist. Researcher for the Canadian government during the Second World war and then professor at McGill University from 1945 until his retirement in 1979, he was renowned for his research in cloud physics and precipitation, but especially for being a pioneer of weather radar.

Biography

Early life

Stewart Marshall was born on July 18, 1911, in

Just after the war, Marshall and R. H. Douglas formed the "Stormy Weather Group" at McGill University and continued their work.^[1][2] Different instruments were used by the group in research on the fundamental properties of precipitation. They were mounted at Dawson College, just south of the university's main campus.

In the mid-1950s, the Stormy Weather Group's contribution included the study of cloud physics, radar precipitation echo properties, early radar application to storm surveys, and precipitation monitoring at wider scale.^[1] Some of the topics closely associated with Marshall are the raindrop size distribution, the study of the snow virga slope, radar signal fluctuation, coalescence and radar displays like CAPPI and HARPI.^[1] In 1968, the need for a more permanent radar led to the construction of the current observatory, which was named the J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory a little later in honor of the founder of the research group.

At the same time Marshall was leading the research group, he was a professor of physics and meteorology at McGill University. The activities of the "Stormy Weather Group" attracted more and more graduates and, in large part, enabled the formation of the full-fledged meteorological department in 1959, the first in Canada. As director and founder, Stewart Marshall has profoundly influenced the teaching of meteorology, his department serving as a model for the creation of half a dozen programs across Canada.^[1]

Dissemination of knowledge

Marshall and R. C. Langille, a colleague from Ottawa, were the only Canadians to attend the first radar meteorology conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1947.^[1] He organized the third conference at McGill in 1952 with two of his first PhD students: Walter Hitschfeld and Kenrick Gunn. Marshall also organized the 11th conference in Boulder in 1964, co-sponsored by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the International Union of Radio Science (IURS), and the 13th conference in 1968, again in Montreal.^[1]

Recognition

Stewart Marshall and his doctoral student, Walter Palmer, became famous for their work on the distribution of mid-latitude raindrops that led to the relationship between radar return (Z for reflectivity) and precipitation rate (R): the ZR relation.^[3]

Marshal has published many articles. He has served on numerous scientific and educational committees in Canada and the United States. He was a

• In 1961, the Patterson Medal of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society^[1][5]
• In 1982, the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology by the AMS^[6]
• The Hugh Robert Mill Medal of the Royal Meteorological Society^[1]

References