Wing has led major collaborative projects like RCEMIP and PICCOLO (part of ORCESTRA), using models and field campaigns to study tropical clouds, convection, and rainfall.

Allison Wing, Associate Professor of Meteorology and Environmental Science at Florida State University, is the first FSU faculty member to receive the American Geophysical Union Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award.

The award recognizes her work on tropical convection and hurricanes, including the finding that cloud-radiation interactions influence the earliest stages of hurricane development.

Wing’s research informs hurricane and tropical weather forecasts, with potential to save lives and reduce property damage by improving prediction methods.

FSU calls this achievement a mark of national prominence in tropical meteorology, hurricane research, and climate science within the department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science.

PICCOLO involved collecting cloud and rain measurements from Barbados to Cape Verde using Sea-Pol Radar on the research vessel Meteor to test hypotheses about cloud cluster development and its impact on Atlantic rainfall and tropical circulation.

Wing’s career highlights include the RCEMIP and PICCOLO projects, NSF CAREER Award (2016), NSF PEER award history, and a 2014 MIT PhD in atmospheric sciences, with postdoctoral work at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

RCEMIP compares different weather and climate models to understand how warming affects tropical clouds and rainfall through cloud clustering.

A key finding is that cloud-radiation interactions contribute to thunderstorm clustering and early hurricane development, suggesting forecast improvements by incorporating these processes at storm genesis.

Wing will receive the Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award at AGU’s annual meeting in December in San Francisco, California.