Atlas owned 22 patents, published more than 260 papers, was a member of many associations, and received numerous honors in his field.

The results of his team were used for the development of the actual United States Doppler weather radars network called NEXRAD.

[1][3] In 1977, Atlas formed the Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences at the NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

This center has produced numerous meteorological instruments to be used on weather satellites for study of the atmosphere, the oceans, and the cryosphere.

[3][6][7] He received in 2004, the Dennis J. Picard Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for "exceptionally outstanding leadership and significant individual technical contributions to the application of radar for the observation of weather and other atmospheric phenomena".