CliC is governed by the Scientific Steering Group (SSG), a group of leading experts in cryosphere and climate research who dedicate their time to international efforts. SSG members are appointed by the WCRP Joint Scientific Committee (JSC), who have been evaluated from submissions to open calls for nominations. The SSG is supported by the Director of the International Project Office (IPO), WCRP JSC Liaisons, and the WCRP Secretariat. The SSG holds annual meetings and communicates intersessionally via email and online meetings.
CliC Scientific Steering Group 2023
The Scientific Steering Group (SSG) has the overall responsibility for planning and implementation of the CliC Strategic Plan, overseeing all CliC activities and cooperation with other WCRP projects and activities, as well as promoting collaboration with external partners. The SSG members are appointed by the WCRP Joint Scientific Committee, based on recommendations by the current CliC SSG. Initial membership is for four years and, as a rule, up to two extensions of two years each may be recommended for members. For Co-Chairs, a one year extension as a member is possible. The SSG usually meets once a year.
Amy L. Lovecraft (Co-Chair, January 2023 – December 2026)
Dr. Amy Lauren Lovecraft has been with CliC SSG since 2018 and was appointed Co-Chair in 2023. Lovecraft has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas, Austin, and is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). In 2018, she became the Director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies (CAPS), housed in the International Arctic Research Center. CAPS represents an interdisciplinary globally informed group of affiliates who mobilize the historical dimensions of policy contexts, the power of collaboration, and the use of integrative approaches towards problem-solving based on evidence-based practices with a positive outlook toward the future of Alaska and the Arctic. In her research, Dr. Lovecraft explores power dynamics in social-ecological systems. In particular, how are problems defined and policies designed in light of climate change and development uncertainties in the Arctic? Her scholarship explores this question from transdisciplinary standpoints seeking to bridge the domains of science, policy, and civic life. She has been a Dickey Fellow in Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Norway at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO). She has served two terms as a member of the U.S. National Academies Polar Research Board, a term on the SEARCH Steering Committee, and served Nordforsk in evaluating the Nordic Arctic Centres of Excellence (2017 – 2021). In 2017 she was elected to the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research. Email: allovecraft@alaska.edu
Edward Hanna (Co-Chair, January 2022 – December 2025)
Edward Hanna is a Professor in Climate Science and Meteorology and Coordinator of the Lincoln Climate Research Group in the Department of Geography, University of Lincoln, UK. He has wide interests in climate and cryosphere and has been a keen meteorologist since age 7. He obtained his PhD on Antarctic sea ice and climate couplings from the University of Bristol, following a first degree in Planetary Science at University College London. His research focuses on the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance and how it is influenced by, and influences, climate change and extreme weather. Results of this work have been reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and he was a Contributing Author on their Fifth Assessment Report. He is a regular contributor to the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Arctic Report Card, has published 140 peer-reviewed papers, won the Royal Meteorological Society International Journal of Climatology Editor’s Award 2017, and was a co-recipient of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology’s 2019 Denny Medal. In collaboration with the Met Office and others, he leads a Natural Environment Research Council-funded project on improving seasonal prediction of atmospheric jet stream changes over the North Atlantic, and therefore, weather conditions over north-west Europe using complex systems models. He also investigates Arctic-mid latitude weather/climate linkages. He has conducted fieldwork in Greenland, Lapland, Svalbard, and the Chilean Andes. He currently acts as the CliC liaison for the ISMASS expert group. He is passionate about promoting climate and cryosphere matters with diverse audiences. Email: ehanna@lincoln.ac.uk
Sandra Barreira (January 2023 – December 2026)
Dr. Sandra Barreira has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has held the position of Director of Research at the Argentine Naval Hydrographic Services since 2014. Her expertise includes meteorology, ocean sciences, climatology, and forecast with big data analysis. As the first South American scientist to study sea ice on both poles, she has 20 years of experience in research in the field. She was a member of the CliC/SCAR/CLIVAR Southern Ocean Regional Panel, a national representative at the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), and a founding member and board member of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) in Argentina. Email: barreira.sandra@gmail.com
Hanne H. Christiansen (January 2020 – December 2023)
Hanne H. Christiansen is a professor in the Arctic Geology Department at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). She is the Vice Dean for Education and Head of the Arctic Geology Department at UNIS. She was Vice-President of the International Permafrost Association, IPA (2008-2016). Periglacial geomorphology, focusing on active layer–permafrost dynamics including cryostratigraphy, and climatic and meteorological control on periglacial landforms, processes, and sediments are the primary research and educational areas of interest for Dr. Christiansen. Her Ph.D. on the geomorphological effect of snow – nivation is from 1995. She has field experience from Greenland, Svalbard, and former cold climatic landscapes of Scandinavia from the last 25 years. She has been involved in the establishment of the Arctic Safety Centre at UNIS and also worked with the consequences of climate change on permafrost in Arctic communities focusing on geohazards. Email: hannec@unis.no
Ben Galton-Fenzi (January 2023 – December 2026)
Galton-Fenzi is a senior scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division and leads a team of researchers focused on understanding how and why the Antarctic ice sheet will respond to climate change. He has a PhD in oceanography (2009) and studied the mechanisms controlling the dynamic interaction between the ice sheets and the oceans. He has worked in several remote, deep field locations, including Law Dome, the Amery Ice shelf, and most recently the Totten Glacier (leading field seasons since 2016). The Totten is one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica and is thought to be susceptible to rapid retreat due to a warming climate, and one of the main potential contributors to global sea level rise. His research deals with the integration of observations, theory, and models. Email: ben.galton-fenzi@ad.gov.au
Juan Höffer (January 2022 – December 2025)
I am an associate professor of biological oceanography at the School of Marine Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile. I am a biologist studying the biological component of the Oceans over the last 15 years. I am particularly interested in the interactions between the physico-chemical conditions and the biological component in a changing ocean. Since 2017, I have been researching Antarctic marine ecosystems and how global change (especially freshening) will affect their functioning and thus their role in global biogeochemical cycles. I have established a close collaboration with researchers working in the Arctic, broadening the insights achieved by my research.
Nowadays I mainly study the effects of melting glaciers on polar coastal ecosystems. I am particularly interested in how the marine cryosphere interacts with coastal Antarctic ecosystems affecting the role that the latter will have in the climate system through air-sea fluxes of climate-relevant trace gases. Up to date, we know very little about what is coming into the ocean along with the meltwater (e.g. trace metals, sediment load), and a reliable assessment of these parameters is key to model and predict the effects that a melting cryosphere would have on Earth climate system through oceanographic feedbacks. Email: juan.hofer@pucv.cl
Camille Lique (January 2020 – December 2023)
Camille Lique is an IFREMER research scientist at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale in Brest. She received her PhD in Physical Oceanography in 2010 from the Université de Bretagne Occidentale. She then obtained a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington (Seattle) before moving to the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford (UK) as a research associate. Her research centers around understanding variability and change in Arctic Ocean dynamics, and its connections to the global ocean circulation and climate, using both numerical models and observations. She co-led the modeling component of the Arctic Freshwater Synthesis run by the International Climate and the Cryosphere project (CliC). She also serves as a co-PI of the European modeling consortium Drakkar. Email: camille.lique@ifremer.fr
Thamban Meloth (January 2022 – December 2025)
Thamban Meloth is the Director of the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, India. His current studies focus on the past climate variability and cryosphere processes in polar regions and Himalaya. Particularly, his studies explore the variability in Antarctic maritime climate during the past millennia and its linkages to the tropical climate modes using ice core proxy records. He also has a strong interest in biogeochemical cycling within snow, ice, and other supraglacial systems. Recently, he has also led studies on the response of the Himalayan cryosphere to the changing climate and its hydrological impacts. He has extensive experience in undertaking field expeditions to Antarctica, Himalaya, and Svalbard.
Thamban is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India. He has received many awards and recognitions, including the START Young Scientist Award in 2001 and the National Geoscience Award in 2013. Thamban is a member of the scientific steering committee of International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) and the cryosphere working group of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). Email: meloth@ncpor.res.in
Ramiro Saurral (January 2022 – December 2025)
I am a professor at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a full-time researcher at the Center of Atmospheric Research (CIMA), Argentina. My main research interests include understanding the physical mechanisms associated with climate linkages between high and mid-latitudes, and how these shape the occurrence of climate and weather extremes in the mid-latitudes. I am also interested in synoptic-scale phenomena such as cold/heat waves and blocking, as well as the physical processes behind them. I have expertise in near-term climate predictions (seasonal to interannual scales), and I am interested in the predictive skill of the climate at high latitudes, including sea ice, and the effect of warm air on frozen surfaces reaching the polar regions. Email: saurral@cima.fcen.uba.ar
Shin Sugiyama (January 2020 – December 2023)
Shin Sugiyama is a Professor in Glaciology at the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University in Japan. He studies the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets. In particular, his team focuses on glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, and Patagonia, where he has been carrying out extensive field activities. He is currently most interested in calving glaciers, which are rapidly changing under the interaction with the ocean and lakes. In Greenland, he works with local residents to investigate environmental changes along the coast and their impact on Greenlandic society. He is also engaged in a graduate school program on Antarctic science under the framework of a global educational consortium, the International Antarctic Institute. He studied material physics at Osaka University, worked as a research engineer at Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd., and served as a high school teacher in Zambia, before obtaining his PhD from Hokkaido University. After his research activities in the Swiss Alps as a research scientist at ETH-Zurich, he returned to Sapporo to join a glaciology group at the Institute of Low Temperature Science. He has served as the Vice President of IGS and as a Cryosphere WG member of IASC. Email: sugishin@lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp
Martin Vancoppenolle (January 2019 – December 2023)
Martin Vancoppenolle is a CNRS Research Scientist at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat, the ocean lab of the French centre for climate sciences, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), located in Paris. Martin obtained his Ph.D. in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) and did a Postdoc at the University of Washington in Seattle. What are the ongoing and upcoming changes in the sea ice scape of the cold oceans? Which impacts on the rest of the Earth System? To answer such questions, Martin studies sea ice’s physical, biological, and chemical processes with the help of numerical models and observations. His research themes cover the role of sea ice processes in the Earth System, the representation of sea ice in Earth System Models, sea ice halo-thermodynamics, and biogeochemical cycles in ice-covered seas. Martin is co-leading sea ice modeling activities for NEMO, the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean, and the development of the SI3 model (Sea Ice Modelling Integrated Initiative). He is also involved with BEPSII (Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at the Sea Ice Interfaces). Finally, Martin teaches several classes on the Polar Oceans, sea ice, and climate modeling. Email: martin.vancoppenolle@locean.ipsl.fr
Lauren Vargo (January 2022 – December 2025)
I am a researcher at the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. I finished my Ph.D. in 2019 at the same research centre, after working at Los Alamos National Lab (2015) and studying at the University of New Mexico (2015) and the College of Wooster (2013). My research focuses on better understanding how and why glaciers and seasonal snow are changing, by using field observations, remote sensing data, climate reanalysis data, GCM output, and numerical modeling. I help conduct an annual survey of New Zealand glaciers that has run since 1977. I use these records of glacier change to answer research questions centered around the impact of climate change on glacier melt. In addition to research, my secondary interests include increasing access to science and glaciology, including as the co-founder of Girls on Ice Aotearoa/New Zealand, and communicating climate science in ways that engage and inform the public. I am also involved with the International Glaciological Society (IGS) and the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS). Email: lauren.vargo@vuw.ac.nz
Past Steering Group Members (2000-2022)
- Helene Seroussi, 2019 – 2022
- Fiammetta Straneo, 2018 – 2022 (Co-Chair)
- Jens Hesselbjerg Christiansen, 2018 – 2022 (WCRP JSC liaison)
- Tingjun Zhang, 2020 – 2021
- Timothy Naish, 2017 – 2021 (leader WCRP Grand Challenge “Melting Ice and Global Consequences”)
- James Renwick, 2013 – 2021 (WCRP JSC liaison 2013 – 2017)
- Lars H. Smedsrud, 2016 – 2021
- Igor Shkolnik, 2018 – 2021 (WCRP JSC liaison)
- Jason Box, 2020
- Darion Trombotto Liaudat, 2016 – 2019
- Shichang Kang, 2015 – 2019
- Stephen Hudson, 2016 – 2019
- Hiroyuki Enomoto, 2016 – 2019
- Mauricio Mata, 2014 – 2018 (WCRP JSC Liaison)
- Sebastian Mernild, 2014 – 2018
- Alexandra Jahn, 2014 – 2018
- Gerhard Krinner, 2013 – 2017 (Co-Chair)
- Margareta Johansson, 2015 – 2017
- Rob Massom, 2013 – 2017
- Tatiana Pavlova, 2015 – 2017
- Greg Flato, 2013 – 2016 (Co-Chair)
- Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, 2013 – 2016
- Larry Hinzman, 2013 – 2015
- Peter Lemke, 2013 – 2015
- Nalân Koç, 2013 – 2015
- Tetsuo Ohata, 2013 – 2015
- Alexander Klepikov, 2013 – 2015
- Helmut Rott, 2009 – 2014
- Cunde Xiao, 2009 – 2014
- Annette Rinke, 2008 – 2013
- Vladimir Romanovsky, 2008 – 2013
- Koni Steffen, 2006 – 2012 (Chair 2008 – 2012)
- Sebastian Gerland, 2009 – 2012
- David Bromwich, 2009 – 2012
- Ayako Abe-Ouchi, 2009 – 2012
- Gino Casassa, 2006 – 2012 (Vice-Chair 2008 – 2012)
- Terry Prowse, 2008 – 2011
- Vladimir Kattsov, 2007 – 2011
- Anthony Worby, 2005 – 2011 (Vice-Chair 2007 – 2011)
- Mark Drinkwater, 2001 – 2008
- Barry Goodison, 2000 – 2008 (Chair 2003 – 2008)
- Dahe Qin, 2001 – 2008
- Tetsuo Ohata, 2001 – 2008 and 2012 – 2015
- John Turner, 2003 – 2008
- Thierry Fichefet, 2000 – 2007
- Vladimir Kotlyakov, 2001 – 2007
- Cecilie Mauritzen, 2004 – 2007
- Douglas Kane, 2003 – 2006
- H. Jay Zwally, 2001 – 2006
- Ian Allison, 2000 – 2005 (Vice-Chair 2000 – 2005)
- Roger Barry, 2000 – 2005 (Vice-Chair 2000 – 2005)
- Howard Cattle, 2000 – 2003 (Chair 2000 – 2003)
- Eberhard Fahrbach, 2000 – 2003
- Peter Jones, – 2000
- Humphrey Melling, – 2000
- Thomas McClimans, – 2000
- Takatoshi Takizawa, – 2000