About
Prof. Dowling teaches atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics. Dr. Dowling's Research area is planetary atmospheric dynamics, and he and his students analyze Voyager, Galileo, Cassini and Hubble Space Telescope data of the gas giants. Dowling is the lead author of the EPIC atmospheric model, which is used by NASA and researchers around the world to model the weather on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. He has appeared in science documentaries about planetary weather on the National Geographic, Discovery and History Channels. He is married to Prof. Beth Bradley of the UofL Mathematics Dept; they have two daughters.
Dr. Dowling's Latest Research:
Prof. Dowling studies planetary atmospheres and specializes in atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics. He is the Principal Investigator on the development of the EPIC Atmospheric model, funded by NASA and NSF, which is a general circulation model (GCM) designed for planetary applications. EPIC stands for "Explicit Planetary Isentropic Coordinate" and is a leading model for the atmospheres of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The model can also be used to simulate the atmospheres of terrestrial-class atmospheres, including Venus, Earth, Mars and Titan (a large moon of Saturn with a substantial atmosphere). Some topics Prof. Dowling and his students and postdocs are working on include: Jupiter's Great Red Spot, thunderstorms on Jupiter and Saturn, jet-stream stability, jet streams in the Martian atmosphere, and the dynamics of vortices and clouds on Uranus and Neptune.