BOULDER--More than three dozen scientists and support staff at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) served as authors or reviewers for reports by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and several have played leadership roles. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today with former Vice President Al Gore.
NCAR experts are available to comment on this morning's announcement. The Nobel committee cited the IPCC's two decades of scientific reports, saying they have "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming."
Published this year, the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report leverages computer modeling that depicts global climate with unprecedented detail. Through support by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation's supercomputing centers, and partnership with Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, the NCAR-based Parallel Climate Model and Community Climate System Model provided a wealth of scientific data to the IPCC report.
"I expect this will provide greater visibility to the issue of climate change and to the importance of educating the general public and decision makers about this critical problem," said NCAR senior scientist Kevin Trenberth, a coordinating lead author on this year's IPCC report. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal and it is very likely due to human activities, according to the IPCC. The science is settled in the sense that we know we need to take action."
Trenberth, Gerald Meehl, and Guy Brasseur served as coordinating lead authors of the IPCC's Working Group I, which focused on the science of climate change. Five other scientists at NCAR served as lead authors of that report.
In addition, three NCAR scientists – Linda Mearns, Kathleen Miller, and Patricia Romero Lankao -- served as lead authors for IPCC's Working Group II report this year. That report focused on the potential impacts of climate change and how society can adapt.
In all, 39 NCAR staff served as coordinating lead authors, lead authors, reviewers, or contributors on the 2007 IPCC reports, with additional staff providing technical support.
The IPCC, a group representing over 180 governments, operates under the auspices of the U.N. Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. It commissions assessments of global climate change by hundreds of scientists who are experts in the field.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under primary sponsorship by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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