The Sverdrup Gold Medal is "granted to researchers who make outstanding contributions to the scientific knowledge of interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere." The award, in the form of a medallion, will be presented at the AMS Annual Meeting to be held on 2–6 February 2014 in Atlanta, GA.

John Marshall is an oceanographer with broad interests in climate and the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, which he studies through the development of mathematical and numerical models of physical and biogeochemical processes. His research has focused on problems of ocean circulation involving interactions between motions on different scales, using theory, laboratory experiments, and observations as well as innovative approaches to global ocean modeling pioneered by his group at MIT.

Current research foci include: ocean convection and subduction, stirring and mixing in the ocean, eddy dynamics and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the role of the ocean in climate, climate dynamics, aquaplanets.

Professor Marshall received his PhD in atmospheric sciences from Imperial College, London in 1980. He joined EAPS in 1991 as an associate professor and has been a professor in the department since 1993. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2008. He is coordinator of Oceans at MIT, a new umbrella organization dedicated to all things related to the ocean across the Institute, and director of MIT’s Climate Modeling Initiative (CMI)