The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the first of four new reports on climate change this week (Feb. 2), updating their most recent world reports from 2001. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin working in climate science, energy, geophysics, and efforts to track and combat global warming are available to offer context on the reports.
General Overview / IPCC / Climate Systems
Eric Barron, dean, Jackson School of Geosciences, is a reviewer of past IPCC reports and a national expert on climate science. He is chair of the Board on Atmospheric Sciences of the National Research Council (NRC) and former chair of a number of national climate groups for the NRC, NASA, and other organizations monitoring global climate. Contact:
Historical Climate Cycles
Terry Quinn, a research professor at the Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on paleoclimates and Earth's history of temperature and sea-level fluctuations. Contact:
Fred Taylor, a senior research scientist at the Jackson School of Geosciences, is also an expert on paleoclimates and Earth's history of temperature and sea-level fluctuations, working with Quinn to use fossil corals as proxies for ancient climate. Contact:
Ice Caps / Glacial Ice Melts
Don Blankenship, a research scientist at the university's Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on the dynamics of large ice sheets and subglacial geology, including the region of West Antarctica considered most susceptible to melting and inducing massive rises in sea level. Contact:
Ginny Catania, a research associate at the Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on ice processes that contribute to sea-level rise, particularly in the Greenland ice sheet. Contact:
Oceans
Brian Arbic, research associate at the Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on changes in salinity and temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean that occur on decadal timescales and could effect the shifting of major ocean currents, such as the Gulfstream. Contact:
Ken Dunton, a professor at the Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, Texas, studies the response of benthic marine plants (from the polar oceans to the subtropics) to the impacts of human disturbance and global climate change. In a paper published last month, Dunton revealed that inputs of terrestrial carbon in arctic coastal food webs may be more important than previously believed. Contact:
Jim McClelland, an assistant professor at the Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, Texas, studies the effect that human activity (including climate change) has on the land-sea interface. A recent study by McClelland and others showed that increased freshwater in the North Atlantic may be linked to global warming. Contact:
Energy Conservation / Air Pollution / Atmospheric Science
Dave Allen, a professor in chemical engineering, is an expert on energy conservation and its ability to mitigate against greenhouse gas emissions and on the chemistry of fine particles in the atmosphere that contribute to global warming. Contact:
Howard Liljestrand, an engineering professor, is an expert in environmental chemistry in the air, aquatic systems, and hazardous materials, with a focus on modeling and tracing the chemistry of pollutants. Contact:
Climate Modeling
Charles Jackson, a research scientist at the Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on uncertainties in climate models, modeling ancient climates, and the history of Earth's past history of abrupt climate change. Contact:
Zong-Liang Yang, an associate professor in the university's Jackson School of Geosciences, is an expert on climate models and is currently developing one of the first models that integrate climate, atmosphere, hydrology and ecology from the global to the local scale. Contact:
Mitigation / Clean Energy / Carbon Sequestration
Ian Duncan, associate director for environment at the Jackson School of Geosciences' Bureau of Economic Geology, is an expert on carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency and FutureGen, the zero-emissions coal plant of the future. Contact:
Gary Rochelle, professor of chemical engineering, works on carbon dioxide scrubbing and controls used to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. E-mail:
