Episode 9: Ed Sarachik

Deep Convection

For Ed Sarachik, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, science and art have always been complementary but equally important ingredients to an intellectually fulfilling life. When he was a physics major at Queens College in New York City, his art teacher gave him an assignment that would become a formative art experience: Spending hours at the Frick Collection looking at a Vermeer, Ed started to truly see the painting, the play of light and vividness of the scene that a postcard of the original just can’t capture. He was hooked, and visits to art museums remained an essential counterpart to his professional work throughout his scientific career.

“If it wasn’t for art and music, I don’t think I would have been as good a scientist as I am. It provided an outlet. […] Although there have been times when I’ve done science 12 and 14 hours a day, there’s also times I neglected it entirely, and looked at pictures and listened to music. […] I find it absolutely necessary for my existence, for my intellectual satisfaction. “

Ed struggled to get his career off the ground in a time of federal budget cuts in the 1970s. Eventually though (and thanks also to an encounter with Jule Charney), things turned around: Ed transitioned from laser physics to oceanography and went on to write a series of foundational papers on the dynamics of the equatorial ocean with Mark Cane in the late 1970s. He has worked for many decades on climate problems, and especially those that involve coupling between the ocean and the atmosphere – e.g., he has done important work on the role of the ocean in decadal variability, interannual variability and climate change.

In this interview, Ed and Adam also talk about many other subjects, including how Ed started to think about climate impacts after he got to the University of Washington, why he thinks current climate models are poorly suited to that work and how they should be re-formulated.

The interview with Ed Sarachik was recorded in May 2019.

• Ed”s book, co-written with Mark Cane, The El Niño-Southern Oscillation Phenomenon