Editing Gilbert Walker (physicist) (section)

{{Short description|English physicist and statistician}}
{{About||the 19th-century provisional governor of Virginia|Gilbert Carlton Walker|the English cricketer|Gilbert Walker (cricketer)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}
{{Infobox scientist   	
|honorific-prefix = Sir
|birth_name = Gilbert Thomas Walker
|image = Gilbert_Walker.jpg
|caption = 
|birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1868|06|14}}
|birth_place = [[Rochdale]], [[Lancashire]], England
|death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1958|11|04|1868|06|14}}
|death_place = [[Coulsdon]], [[Surrey]], England
|residence =  
|citizenship =  
|field = [[Meteorology]], [[Statistician]] 	
|work_institution = [[University of Cambridge]], [[India Meteorological Department]]<br>[[Imperial College London]]
|alma_mater = [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
|doctoral_students = 
|known_for =
|prizes = [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Taylor | first1 = G. I. | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1962.0013 | title = Gilbert Thomas Walker 1868–1958 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 8 | pages = 166–174 | year = 1962 | s2cid = 71525583 | doi-access = free }}</ref><br>[[Adams Prize]] (1899)<br>[[Knight Bachelor]] (1924) <br>[[Symons Gold Medal]] (1934)
|footnotes =
}}

'''Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CSI|FRS}} (14 June 1868&nbsp;– 4 November 1958) was an English [[physicist]] and [[statistician]] of the 20th century. Walker studied mathematics and applied it to a variety of fields including [[aerodynamics]], [[electromagnetism]] and the analysis of [[time-series]] data before taking up a teaching position at the University of Cambridge. Although he had no experience in meteorology, he was recruited for a post in the Indian Meteorological Department where he worked on statistical approaches to predict the monsoons. He developed the methods in the analysis of time-series data that are now called the [[Autoregressive model#Yule–Walker equations|Yule-Walker equations]]. He is known for his groundbreaking description of the [[El Niño|Southern Oscillation]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Walker |first1=G. T. |title=Correlation in seasonal variations of weather. IX. A further study of world weather |journal=Memoirs of the Indian Meteorological Department |date=1924 |volume=24 |pages=275–332}}  From p. 283:  "There is also a slight tendency two-quarters later towards an increase of pressure in S. America and of Peninsula [i.e., Indian] rainfall, and a decrease of pressure in Australia : this is part of the main oscillation described in the previous paper* which will in future be called the 'southern' oscillation."  Available at:  [https://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/classicindia2.pdf Royal Meteorological Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318173334/https://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/classicindia2.pdf |date=18 March 2017 }}</ref> a major phenomenon of global [[climate]], and for discovering what is named after him as the [[Walker circulation]], and for greatly advancing the [[climatology|study of climate]] in general. He was also instrumental in aiding the early career of the Indian mathematical prodigy, [[Srinivasa Ramanujan]].