Colorado State University Scientists Involved in Ipcc – 2007 Recipient of Nobel Peace Prize

Colorado State University scientists have been closely involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize announced Friday.

Thousands of scientists from across the globe were involved in the IPCC. At Colorado State University, David Randall, Atmospheric Science professor, served as a Coordinating Lead Author on a chapter on climate modeling in the final report issued earlier this year by the IPCC. Other CSU participants included Keith Paustian and Rich Conant with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, who served as lead authors on chapters for a carbon cycle report, commissioned to review the status of carbon cycle science knowledge and research. Also contributing from NREL was Stephen Ogle who served as a lead author on a chapter dealing with mitigation options in agriculture.

"I’m very pleased that IPCC received this honor," Randall said. "We’re extremely happy about it. I think it’s deserved by this enormous team of people of which I’m just one member."

He also commended participants at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and had high praise for NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory scientist Susan Solomon, who has co-chaired Working Group I of the IPCC.

"Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said of the IPCC in its announcement Friday.

More about some of the CSU scientists who have been involved with IPCC:

-Randall is director of the $19 million NSF Science and Technology Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes to build climate models that will more accurately depict cloud processes and improve climate and weather forecasting for scientists around the world. Randall is a previous recipient of the Scholarship Impact Award, one of the university’s top honors for research accomplishments. Other key atmospheric science faculty at CSU involved in the center are Scott Denning and Wayne Schubert.

-Paustian, a professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, is a research scientist in NREL. He also serves on the scientific steering committee for the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program. He co-chaired the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology Taskforce on Agriculture, Climate Change, and Greenhouse Gases and served as Coordinating Lead Author for IPCC’s volume on greenhouse gas inventory methods for agriculture, forestry and other land use. He has served on several other IPCC panels dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts.

-Conant is a research scientist at NREL and faculty affiliate in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. He worked with Paustian as a co-author on IPCC’s volume on greenhouse gas inventory methods for agriculture, forestry and other land use. He is a lead author on the State of the Carbon Cycle Report, Climate Change Program Scientific Assessment Product 2.2, A Lead Author of the Land Report for the Integrated Global Observation Strategy Partners, and Lead Author of the USDA-NRCS National Engineering Handbook on Global Change.

-Ogle is a research scientist at NREL and faculty affiliate in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. He is principal investigator on the U.S. assessment of agricultural land use and management impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, which is used for national and international policy purposes. Ogle has worked on syntheses and reports through the IPCC, including as a lead author on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change (Mitigation) and the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

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