The CliC community was greatly saddened to learn that Professor Tingjun Zhang passed away on January 18, 2022, at the age of 65, after a short period of illness.
Zhang was a highly recognized scientist in climate and cryosphere research over the past three decades. He obtained a PhD degree in Geophysics in 1993 at the Institute of Geophysics, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Zhang held positions as senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, USA and a CIRES Fellow at the Institute of Integrated Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado. He also served as the dean of the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou University, China. Since 2010, he was a distinguished professor at Lanzhou University
Zhang´s research interests included the study of permafrost, snow cover, lake and river ice, the response of cryosphere to climate change, carbon exchange and related hydrological problems. He also delved into numerical modelling of geophysical phenomena in cold regions, and satellite remote sensing of the near-surface soil freeze/thaw status. He published more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles and numerous peer-reviewed and referred scientific conference proceedings articles, book chapters, and book reviews.
He was a lead author of the chapters “Changes in Snow, Ice, and Frozen Ground” in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and “Observations: Cryosphere” in the Fifth IPCC AR. He served as editor, associate editor and editor of academic journals including “Cold Regions Science and Technology”, “Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research”, “Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface” and “The Cryosphere” editorial board
Prof. Zhang was appointed member of the CliC Scientific Steering Group (SGG) in 2020. However, he was an active contributor to the project prior to his official role on the SSG by facilitating the organization of CliC meetings in China and Japan while working with director Prof. Roger Barry (a founding member of CliC) in Boulder and Prof. Daqing Yang, Executive Director of the CliC International Project Office.
On behalf of the CliC Steering Scientific Group
Beatriz Balino, CliC International Project Office