American meteorologist

Warren M. Washington is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on the development of computer models that describe and predict the Earth's climate. He is the director of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in Boulder, Colorado. He has advised the U.S. Congress and several U.S. presidents on climate-system modeling, serving on the President's National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere from 1978 to 1984.

Washington was born in Portland, Oregon. His father, Edwin Washington Jr., had hoped to be a schoolteacher, but in the 1920s, Portland wouldn't hire African-Americans to teach in the public schools. Instead, the elder Washington supported Warren and his four brothers by waiting tables in Pullman cars. His wife, Dorothy Grace (Morton) Washington, became a practical nurse, after the Washington children were grown.

Washington's interest in scientific...