October 18, 2007
UW early contributor to Nobel prize-winning work by climate group
Within years of its inception, UW faculty began working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore last week.
In the intervening years more than 50 faculty, affiliate faculty and students have served as lead authors, contributing authors and reviewers for the IPCC’s major reports assessing the science of what is happening with the world’s climate, the causes behind that and what the future holds.
Dozens more Pacific Northwest scientists have contributed data and findings that underpin the IPCC reports. They join scientists from countries around the globe whose work has gone into the IPCC’s four major assessment reports and special-issue reports since 1988, when the IPCC was formed. The most recent assessment report in February provided an at-times stark picture of how climate change will have serious effects on the world in the coming decades.
“This is exactly the type of work UW scientists are noted for: important research to help us meet the big, complex challenges of our time,” said UW President Mark Emmert. “What is noteworthy is not only the fact that our scientists have been working at these difficult issues for so many years, but that so many of them across various disciplines have contributed to the success of the IPCC. We’re very proud of all of them.”
The year after it was formed, Edward Miles, UW professor of marine affairs, began studying the IPCC. That work included serving a five-month internship with the IPCC secretariat in Geneva in the fall of 1993 and winter of 1994.
Miles and Edward Sarachik, an atmospheric scientist, were both asked to be lead authors of chapters in the IPCC’s second major assessment report in 1995. Miles wrote about marine policy and Sarachik wrote about oceanic processes.
For the assessment issued last February, 10 local scientists including Miles and Sarachik were contributors or reviewers. Philip Mote, a UW research scientists with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, was the lead author for a chapter on changes in snow, ice and frozen ground.
Contributing authors for the report included UW faculty Todd Mitchell and Ignatius Rigor and affiliate faculty Tim Bates, Michael McPhaden, Chris Sabine and Richard Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scientists who reviewed the work in the report included Mote, Miles, Sarachik and UW’s Justin Wettstein.
IPCC contributors are part of campus groups such as the Climate Impacts Group, the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, Program on Climate Change, Applied Physics Laboratory, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Oceanography, School of Marine Affairs and Department of Earth and Space Sciences, as well as NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
“As the wording of the Nobel prize citation emphasizes, it is not just having the scientific knowledge, but also getting public understanding and affecting policy that will alter the outcomes of our changing climate,” says Arthur Nowell, dean of the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences. “UW scientists, policy experts and analysts have been important players in all three aspects from the oceans, the atmosphere and the policy dimensions.”
The focus of work by UW isn’t just international in perspective. An assessment of the impact of climate change on the state was launched in August by the UW’s Climate Impacts Group and is expected to be the most comprehensive ever. The study will include the first statewide look at how climate change may affect the health of Washington residents — for example, by potentially increasing the incidence of West Nile virus or Lyme disease. The project also marries the UW’s climate tools and modeling know-how with Washington State University’s agricultural expertise to create the most-detailed examination ever of how climate change might change the agricultural productivity and sustainability.
A list of UW authors and reviewers for IPCC reports is being compiled here.
