When I was a first-year graduate student at Colorado State, my dad advised me to get an early start on the seminal literature of the field, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I tried searching online for an atmospheric science “reading list”, but I couldn’t really find anything relevant. So I ended up asking one of my professors, Dave Randall, if he had a list of important papers that he felt every student should read. It took him a day or so for him to sort out what he thought were the “top” papers over the last 50 years, but he got back to me with this list:
Charney, J. G., 1948: On the scale of atmospheric motions. Geophys. Publ. Oslo, 17, 1-17.
Lorenz, E. N., 1963: Deterministic nonperiodic flow. J. Atmos. Sci., 20, 130-141.
As I read more of these I can easily see why these papers bubbled to the top of the list. The only ones I haven’t read yet are Lilly (1968) and Manabe and Weatherald (1975). Hopefully I’ll get around to posting my reading notes from Matsuno (1966), since this paper has been the most relevant for my research.
I also found this more extensive list of classic papers maintained by prof Geoff Vallis.
Hi Walter, Dave’s list is missing Gill (1980) and Hannah and Maloney (2011)! Wayne Schubert once told me that Matsuno wrote his 1966 paper when he was a grad student, if you can believe that. Maybe we could make a “Classic MJO” paper list?
Thanks Jim! Gill (1980) should definitely be on there. I had no idea he was a student, but that makes it all the more amazing. A classic MJO reading list would be a good idea, especially for people just starting to learn about it.