The UCLA Department of Meteorology was founded in 1940 by J. Bjerknes, J. Holmboe, and J. Kaplan. At the time, it’s faculty members conducted research in weather and atmospheric dynamics.

During WWII, the department trained 1200 meteorologists.

The first Bachelor Degrees were awarded in 1941 and the first Doctoral Degrees were awarded in 1946 to Jules G. Charney and Yale Mintz.

In 1957, it moved to the Math Sciences Building and reached 13 faculty members for 40 undergraduate and 40 graduate students in 1960.

In 1964, the first global circulation model was developed by Yale Mintz and Akio Arakawa.

The Meteorology department is a founding member of National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

In 1976, it was renamed to Department of Atmospheric Sciences and its research focused mainly in tropical meteorology, atmospheric dynamics, space physics, air pollution, clouds.

In 1990’s, the Department area of focus expanded into Oceanography and Biogeochemistry.

In 2004, it was renamed Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences and was selected as top Atmospheric Sciences Department in the US by the NRC.

As of today, the AOS Department focuses on different areas of Climate Science such as Atmospheric Dynamics & Meteorology, Biogeochemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Upper Atmosphere, Space Physics & Planetary Atmospheres and Oceanography.