About us.....
The long tradition of Agricultural Meteorology at the University of Nebraska continues into this century as faculty maintain their well known teaching, research, and outreach efforts in a newly formed school, the School of Natural Resources. Known as the Department of Agricultural Meteorology in the past; we are now the Applied Climate Sciences group.
Weather and climate greatly affect the environment of the High Plains, in turn impacting on the well-being of families and the economy of the region. Under the leadership of Dr. Norman Rosenberg in the 1960s, an agricultural meteorology program was initiated at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). By 1979, the Center for Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology (CAMaC) was formed with a small, but very capable group of scientists. CAMaC was established as a separate entity within the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) at UNL to fill the needs for expanded research and service for the State of Nebraska and the adjacent High Plains region. The Center was strongly interdisciplinary from the outset. CAMaC became the Department of Agricultural Meteorology in 1989, with Dr. Blaine L. Blad serving as department head; the department continued to grow in size and service. Graduate students earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees with a specialization in Agricultural Meteorology through a cooperative degree program with the Departments of Agronomy & Horticulture and Agricultural Engineering. In 1997 the unit was merged with other units within UNL to form the School of Natural Resources with the goal of providing an effective, coordinated effort in environmental research, teaching and outreach. Students interested in weather and climate effects that emphasize the natural environment now pursue a specialization in Agricultural Meteorology (in the Agronomy major through a cooperative agreement with the Department of Agronomy & Horticulture) or one of two options in the Natural Resource Sciences major through the School of Natural Resources (Bio-Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Assessment and Impacts).
