Monitoring Climate Change Impacts: Metrics at the Intersection of the Human and Earth Systems (2010)

Mark R. Abbott (Chair)

Oregon State University

Mark R. Abbott is dean of the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. In addition to his scientific and academic administration expertise, Dr. Abbott brings to the committee relevant appreciation of how the study topics relate to the programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and NASA. His research focuses on the interaction of biological and physical processes in the upper ocean and relies on both remote-sensing and field observations. He deployed the first array of bio-optical moorings in the Southern Ocean as part of the U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). He is a member of the National Science Board, and he is a member of the Committee on Earth Studies. He also served on the Committee on NOAA NESDIS Transition from Research to Operations and the Panel on Land-use Change, Ecosystem Dynamics and Biodiversity of the National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey on Earth Science and Applications from Space.

Robert A. Bindschadler (Vice-Chair)

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Dr. Robert Bindschadler has been an active Antarctic field researcher for the past 25 years. He has led 15 field expeditions to Antarctica and has participated in many other expeditions to glaciers and ice caps around the world. He maintains an active interest in the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets, primarily on Earth, investigating how remote sensing can be used to improve understanding of the role of ice in the Earth’s climate. Applications developed by Dr. Bindschadler include those for measuring ice velocity and elevation using both visible and radar imagery, monitoring melt of and snowfall on ice sheets by microwave emissions, and detecting changes in ice-sheet volume by repeat space-borne radar altimetry. He has advised the U.S. Congress and the vice president on the stability of ice sheets and ice shelves and has served on many scientific commissions and study groups as an expert in glaciology and remote sensing of ice. Some of the more significant awards he has received are: Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2001), Goddard Senior Fellow (2000), Excellence in Federal Career (1989), the Antarctic Service Medal (1984), and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement

Medal (1994). He has published more than 130 scientific papers and numerous review articles and has appeared on television and been heard on radio, commenting on glaciological impacts of the climate on the world’s ice sheets and glaciers. He currently is the immediate past president of the International Glaciological Society, chairs the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative, sits on both the U.S. and international planning groups for the International Polar Year, and is an editor for the Journal of Glaciology.

Rita Colwell

University of Maryland

Rita R. Colwell (NAS) received her Ph.D. in oceanography at the University of Washington. Dr. Colwell is senior advisor and chairman emeritus to Canon U.S. Life Sciences, Inc., president and chairman of CosmosID, Inc., and distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Colwell was the first woman to be named director of the National Science Foundation NSF), where she served with distinction from 1998 to 2004. In her capacity as the NSF director, she served as co-chair of the Committee on Science of the National Science and Technology Council. Dr. Colwell has held many advisory positions in the U.S. government, nonprofit science policy organizations, and private foundations, as well as in the international scientific research community, and she is a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Stockholm, American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Colwell has authored or co-authored over 750 refereed publications and 16 books and has been elected to honorary membership of microbiological societies of several countries. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Science and the Stockholm Water Prize. Dr. Colwell received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, from the Emperor of Japan.

Jeff Dozier

University of California, Santa Barbara

Jeff Dozier is a professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has taught since 1974 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He founded the Bren School and served as its first dean for 6 years. His research interests are in the fields of snow hydrology, Earth system science, remote sensing, and information systems. He has led interdisciplinary studies in two areas: one addresses hydrologic science, environmental engineering, and social science in the water environment; the other addresses the integration of environmental science and remote sensing with computer science and technology. From 1990 to 1992, he was the senior project scientist for NASA’s Earth Observing System when the configuration for the system was established. Professor Dozier has chaired or served on numerous NRC committees concerned with data for science, and he is currently a member of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honorary professor of the Academia Sinica, a recipient of both the NASA/Department of Interior William T. Pecora Award and the NASA Public Service

Medal, and the winner of the 2009 Jim Gray Award from Microsoft for his achievements in data-intensive science.

Darrell G. Herd

Defense Intelligence Agency

Dr. Darrell Herd is a senior research scientist (Defense Intelligence Senior Level, DISL) in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Dr. Herd was appointed as DIA’s chief research scientist in October 2005. He is spearheading defense efforts to secure U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance advantage for the 21st century. Dr. Herd was awarded a B.A. with high distinction and departmental honors in geology and anthropology by Indiana University in 1971. He received an M.S. (1972) and a Ph.D. (1974), both in geology, from the University of Washington. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Herd served as the deputy director for national support for the Central MASINT Organization, DIA. In 2000, Dr. Herd launched a major reassessment of key North Korean command and control facilities and their vulnerabilities to attack. In 2001 Dr. Herd founded a special exploitation cell for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to provide perishable, time-sensitive, all-source intelligence to Special Operations teams pursuing fleeting targets. Between 2001 and 2003, Dr. Herd pioneered innovative use of several nontraditional collection capabilities, securing unique intelligence sources at minimal cost. Dr. Herd is the first author and architect of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s exploitation of overhead classified remote-sensing collection systems to warn, detect, and respond to natural disasters. His successful, nontraditional use of classified collection systems in response to a succession of disasters (e.g., Spitak, Armenia, earthquake, 1988; Pinatubo volcano, the Philippines, 1991; Hurricane Andrew, Florida, 1992; Northridge, California, earthquake, 1994) prompted the founding of dedicated disaster-response teams at the Central Intelligence Agency (National Photographic Interpretation Center) and at U.S. Pacific Command, Hawaii (the Pacific Disaster Center).

William H. Hooke

American Meteorological Society

William H. Hooke is a senior policy fellow and the director of the Atmospheric Policy Program at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Washington, DC. Prior to arriving at AMS in 2000, he worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and antecedent agencies for 33 years. After 6 years of research with NOAA he moved into a series of management positions of increasing scope and responsibility including chief of the Wave Propagation Laboratory Atmospheric Studies Branch, director of NOAA’s Environmental Sciences Group (now the Forecast Systems Lab), deputy chief scientist, and acting chief scientist of NOAA. Between 1993 and 2000, he held two national responsibilities: director of the U.S. Weather Research Program Office and chair of the interagency Subcommittee for Natural Disaster Reduction of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Dr. Hooke was a faculty member at the University of Colorado from 1969 to 1987, and he served as a fellow of two NOAA Joint Institutes (CIRES, 1971-1977; CIRA

1987-2000). The author of more than 50 refereed publications and co-author of 1 book, Dr. Hooke holds a B.S. (physics honors) from Swarthmore College (1964) and an S.M. (1966) and a Ph.D. (1967) from the University of Chicago. Dr. Hooke chaired the Disasters Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)/NRC from 2002-2009, and he chairs the newly formed NAS/NRC Committee on Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience. He was named an NRC National Associate in 2008. He was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 2006.

John A. Orcutt

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

John A. Orcutt is a distinguished professor of geophysics at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Orcutt earned a B.S. in mathematics and physics from the U.S. Naval Academy, an M.Sc. in physical chemistry as a Fulbright Scholar from the University of Liverpool, and a Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. His research focuses on cyberinfrastructure and geophysical applications; geophysical studies of ocean seismo-acoustics including rough seafloor scattering, acoustic-elastic interactions, and the use of small arrays; structure of the elastic earth using seismology, synthetic seismograms, and geophysical inverse theory; internal structure of ocean spreading centers; genesis of the oceanic lithosphere; and nuclear test-ban verification methods. Dr. Orcutt is a past president of the American Geophysical Union and a secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and served briefly as interim president of the Ocean Drilling Program in 2000. Dr. Orcutt is a charter member of the Ocean Studies Board (OSB) and has served on numerous NRC committees, including the OSB’s Committee on Exploration of the Seas.

Herman H. Shugart

University of Virginia

Herman Shugart is the W.W. Corcoran Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, with a joint appointment in the Biology Department, and directs the Global Environmental Change Program at the University of Virginia (UVA). His primary research interests focus on the simulation modeling of forest ecosystems. He has developed and tested models of biogeochemical cycles, energy flow, and secondary succession. In his most recent work, he uses computer models to simulate the growth, birth, and death of each tree on small forest plots. The simulations describe changes in forest structure and composition over time, in response to both internal and external sources of perturbation. The models are applied at spatial scales ranging in size from small forest gaps to entire landscapes and at temporal scales of years to millennia.

Steven Wofsy

Harvard University

Steven Wofsy is currently Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Chemistry at Harvard University, Division of Engineering and Applied Science and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He studied chemical physics at the University of Chicago (B.S., 1966) and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1971), shifting to atmospheric chemistry in 1971. His work has focused on changes in the composition of the stratosphere and troposphere, at first in theory and modeling and later in field and laboratory studies. His current research emphasizes the effects of terrestrial ecosystems on the global carbon cycle, aircraft measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the impacts of climate change and land use on ecosystems and atmospheric composition. Several projects focus on quantitative measurements of ecosystem carbon fluxes, for timescales spanning from instantaneous to decadal and spatial scales from meters to thousands of kilometers, combining physical, chemical, and biological methods. His awards include American Geophysical Union’s McIlwane prize and NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal.

Chris Elfring is the director of the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate as well as the Polar Research Board. She is responsible for all aspects of the Boards’ work, including strategic planning, project development and oversight, financial management, and personnel. She joined The National Academies in 1988 as a study director for the Water Science and Technology Board. Before going to The National Academies, Ms. Elfring was a policy analyst at Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment, where she focused on agriculture, water use, and natural resource management. She went to Washington in 1979 as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Fellow from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her M.S. in science communications. She has a long-standing interest in the policy dimensions of science and communicating science to non-scientists.

Curtis H. Marshall was a senior program officer with the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) until October 2009. He received his B.S. (1995) and M.S. (1998) in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma and his Ph.D. (2004) in atmospheric science from Colorado State University. His doctoral research, which examined the impact of anthropogenic land-use change on the mesoscale climate of the Florida peninsula, was featured in Nature and the New York Times. Prior to joining the staff of BASC in 2006, he was employed as a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While on the staff of BASC, he directed peer reviews for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and staffed studies on mesoscale meteorological observing systems, weather radar, the NPOESS spacecraft, and the impacts of climate change on human health.

Katie Weller is an associate program officer for the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and a report review associate for the Division of Earth and Life Studies. She has worked on National Research Council studies that produced the reports Earth Observations from Space: The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements, Evaluation of the Multifunction Phased Array Radar Planning Process, and Scientific Value of Arctic Sea Ice Imagery Derived Products, among others. In 2009, Ms. Weller received her M.S. in environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University.

Ricardo Payne is a senior program assistant for the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He has contributed administrative and research support to several National Research Council studies and is currently engaged in the America’s Climate Choices suite of activities. Mr. Payne earned B.S. degrees in geography and urban studies and documentary film from Temple University in 2007. Mr. Payne is interested in the film medium’s potential as a communicative tool within environmental policy and further understanding climate change from geospatial, ecological, and socio-economic perspectives.