CSU scientists played key roles in IPCC - Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2007
CSU's David Randall served as a Coordinating Lead Author on a chapter on climate modeling in the final report issued earlier this year by the IPCC.
Revised October 16, 2007
Colorado State University scientists have been closely involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize announced on Oct. 12.
Thousands of scientists involved in the IPCC
Thousands of scientists from across the globe were involved in the IPCC. At Colorado State University, David Randall, Atmospheric Science professor, served as a Coordinating Lead Author on a chapter on climate modeling in the 4th Assessment Report issued earlier this year by the IPCC.
Other CSU contributors include Keith Paustian, Stephen Ogle and Rich Conant with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory. Paustian and Ogle served as Coordinating Lead Author and Lead Authors, respectively, on the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines and Ogle was the Lead Author on a chapter dealing with greenhouse gas mitigation options in agriculture in the 4th Assessment Report. Conant and Paustian served as Lead Authors for a carbon cycle report, commissioned to review the status of carbon cycle science.
Beth Holland, NREL research scientist, was a Lead and Contributing Author of the IPCC 3rd Assessment Report, a Lead Author of the 4th Assessment Report and a participant in the IPCC special meeting on terrestrial carbon stocks. Doug Fox, senior research scientist, emeritus at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, was the Coordinating Lead Author for the "Impacts of Climate Change on Mountain Ecosystems Chapter" in the IPCC 1995 Assessment.
Colorado State reasearchers involved from the beginning
CSU researchers have been engaged in the IPCC process from the beginning. Other contributors include:
- Tom Vonder Haar from CSU's Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere;
- Graeme Stephens n the Department of Atmospheric Science, College of Engineering;
- Linda Joyce and Michael Ryan, affiliate faculty with the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology in the Warner College of Natural Resources and College of Natural Sciences
- Dennis Ojima, Jill Baron (U.S. Geological Survey), and David Schimel (NEON, Inc.), senior research scientists with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in the Warner College;
- Kathleen Galvin, NREL senior research scientist and department chair of the Anthropology department in the College of Liberal Arts.
Enormous team of people deserving of honor
"I'm very pleased that IPCC received this honor," Randall said. "We're extremely happy about it. I think it's deserved by this enormous team of people of which I'm just one member."
He also commended participants at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and had high praise for NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory scientist Susan Solomon, who has co-chaired Working Group I of the IPCC.
Informed consensus about connection between human activities and global warming
"Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said of the IPCC in its announcement Friday.
More about some of the CSU scientists who have been involved with IPCC:
- Randall is director of the $19 million NSF Science and Technology Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes to build climate models that will more accurately depict cloud processes and improve climate and weather forecasting for scientists around the world. Randall is a previous recipient of the Scholarship Impact Award, one of the university's top honors for research accomplishments. Other key atmospheric science faculty members at CSU involved in the center are Scott Denning and Wayne Schubert.
- Paustian is a professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a senior research scientist in NREL. He served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the 2006 IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines and the 2003 IPCC Inventory Good Practice Guidance, and as a lead author on other IPCC panels dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts. He also serves on the scientific steering committee for the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program and co-chaired a Council on Agricultural Science and Technology Taskforce on Agriculture, Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation.
- Conant is a research scientist at NREL and faculty affiliate in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. He worked with Paustian as a co-author on IPCC's volume on greenhouse gas inventory methods for agriculture, forestry and other land use. He is a lead author on the State of the Carbon Cycle Report, Climate Change Program Scientific Assessment Product 2.2, a Lead Author of the Land Report for the Integrated Global Observation Strategy Partners, and Lead Author of the USDA-NRCS National Engineering Handbook on Global Change.
- Ogle is a research scientist at NREL and faculty affiliate in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. He is principal investigator on the U.S. assessment of agricultural land use and management impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, which is used for national and international policy purposes. Ogle has worked on syntheses and reports through the IPCC, including as a lead author on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change (Mitigation) and the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
Contact: Emily Wilmsen
Email: Emily.Wilmsen@colostate.edu
Phone Number: (970) 491-2336
