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Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets (2001)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
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APPENDIX C

Biosketches of the Committee's Members

John E. Walsh is Professor of Meteorology, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana. He received his Ph.D. in 1974 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has done research on the interannual variability of sea ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, seeking to better understand the roles of ice and snow in short-term climatic variability, particularly in the high latitudes. Related work has examined the patterns of year-to-year variability of weather elements over the United States, including statistical and dynamical studies of these patterns. He is currently Associated Editor of the Journal of Climate, has served as a member of the NOAA Council on Long-Term Climate Monitoring, and has been a contributing author for IPCC Scientific Assessment, 1995 and 1999. He served as a member of the NRC's Panel to Review NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers (NRC, 1998), working with the group charged to review the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Judith Curry is Professor at the University of Colorado with appointments in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. She participates in the World Meteorological Organization's World Climate Research Program, is a member of the Science Steering Group of the Arctic Climate System (ACSYS) Program, and chairs the GEWEX Cloud System Studies Working Group on Polar Clouds. She co-chaired SHEBA's Science Working Group and was a member of the Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Steering

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
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Page 122

Committee. Her research interests include polar meteorology and climatology, atmospheric physics and remote sensing, and air/sea interactions. In addition to her expertise in clouds and radiation, she also brings considerable experience on sea ice issues. She received her Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982.

Mark Fahnestock is Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Maryland's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. His research efforts have several themes focused on improving understanding of the current and past behavior of the large ice sheets. Investigations include the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar to measure ice motion (through interferometry) and surface properties of the large ice sheets; the use of passive microwave data to produce a picture of the last 20 years of ice sheet surface conditions; and field measurements to control ice motion studies and measure surface conditions. The goals of this work are to understand the current contributions of the ice sheets to the climate system (such as sea level rise), and to reach a point at which understanding of ice flow is evolved enough to make predictions about the likely response of the ice sheets to climate change. He received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology's Department of Geology and Planetary Science.

Mahlon C. Kennicutt II is Director at the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University and member of the graduate college faculty at the College of Geosciences & Maritime Studies. His research interests are in marine chemistry, organic geochemistry, the chemistry of contaminants in the environment, the design and implementation of environmental monitoring programs, the fate and affect of xenobiotic chemicals in the environment, and the development of integrated indicators of ecosystem health. Dr. Kennicutt has significant Antarctic experience, and has participated in 35 ocean research cruises over the past 20 years. He assited in organizing and writing the workshop report, “Monitoring of Environmental Impacts from Science and Operations in Antarctica,” July 1996. Dr. Kennicutt is one of the two U.S. delegates to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). He serves on the SCAR Group of Specialists on Environmental Affairs and Conservation and SCAR Group of Specialists on Subglacial Lakes, where he has been key in developing the international science plan for exploration of subglacial lakes.

A. David McGuire is Associate Professor (Biology and Wildlife) and Assistant Unit Leader (Landscape Ecology) at the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
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Page 123

of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1989. He has conducted extensive field research in Alaska including studies of ecosystem function and structure throughout the state, breeding biology and trophic relationships of seabirds in western and south-central coastal Alaska, and breeding biology of passerine birds in interior Alaska. His expertise is in modeling ecosystem dynamics that have implications for atmospheric dynamics in high latitudes, and he has experience with the use of various remote sensing products in modeling carbon dynamics and land-surface change in arctic and boreal regions.

William B. Rossow is with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has extensive experience in satellite remote sensing research, primarily as head of the Global Processing Center for the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project for the World Climate Research Program. His work focuses on the study of the properties and behavior of clouds, how changes in clouds alter the planetary and surface radiation budgets, and studies of the dynamics of cloud processes that produce feedbacks on Earth's climate. In this role he has processed large geophysical datasets obtained from satellites and conventional sources and conducted research diagnosing energy and water exchanges using global, decadal data with large number of variables. He holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from Cornell University (1976) and has been at GISS since 1978.

Michael Steele is a Senior Oceanographer at the Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle. He received his Ph.D. in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton University in 1987. His research focuses on Arctic Ocean physical oceanography and sea ice studies, from both modeling and observational perspectives. He has investigated the origins and variability of arctic water masses using data collected by a variety of techniques. His modeling work has often involved the investigation of arctic-wide budgets for heat, salt, and momentum. He has recently synthesized several oceanographic data sets into a global climatology that contains a good representation of the Arctic Ocean. Dr. Steele is active in education outreach programs at the undergraduate and grade school levels.

Charles J. Vorosmarty is a research associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on development of ecosystem models that help understand the interactions between the water cycle and nutrient biogeochemistry. He has been active in the field for over fifteen years, and he has participated in numerous multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research efforts at a variety of spatial and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
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Page 124

temporal scales. Dr. Vorosmarty is currently heading a small research group at the Complex Systems Research Center within the larger Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. A major and recent group effort has centered on the development of GIS and scientific visualization tools that help to link complex data sets and models of land surface and riverine processes. He received his Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire in 1991.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
×
Page 121
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
×
Page 122
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
×
Page 123
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biosketches of the Committee's Members." National Research Council. 2001. Enhancing NASA's Contributions to Polar Science: A Review of Polar Geophysical Data Sets. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10083.
×
Page 124
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The high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic, together with some mountainous areas with glaciers and long-lasting snow, are sometimes called the cryosphere-defined as that portion of the planet where water is perennially or seasonally frozen as sea ice, snow cover, permafrost, ice sheets, and glaciers. Variations in the extent and characteristics of surface ice and snow in the high latitudes are of fundamental importance to global climate because of the amount of the sun's radiation that is reflected from these often white surfaces. Thus, the cryosphere is an important frontier for scientists seeking to understand past climate events, current weather, and climate variability. Obtaining the data necessary for such research requires the capability to observe and measure a variety of characteristics and processes exhibited by major ice sheets and large-scale patterns of snow and sea ice extent, and much of these data are gathered using satellites.

As part of its efforts to better support the researchers studying the cryosphere and climate, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-using sophisticated satellite technology-measures a range of variables from atmospheric temperature, cloud properties, and aerosol concentration to ice sheet elevation, snow cover on land, and ocean salinity. These raw data are compiled and processed into products, or data sets, useful to scientists. These so-called "polar geophysical data sets" can then be studied and interpreted to answer questions related to atmosphere and climate, ice sheets, terrestrial systems, sea ice, ocean processes, and many other phenomena in the cryosphere. The goal of this report is to provide a brief review of the strategy, scope, and quality of existing polar geophysical data sets and help NASA find ways to make these products and future polar data sets more useful to researchers, especially those working on the global change questions that lie at the heart of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise.

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