Blog

Steering Committee:

Terry Prowse – Environment Canada, Canada – Chair

Prof. Terry D. Prowse holds a Professor and Environment Canada sponsored Research Chair (focused on the theme of “Climate Impacts of Water Resources”) at the Water and Climate Impacts Research Centre (W-CIRC) located at the University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. His primary research interests focus on hydrologic, hydro-ecologic and hydro-climatic studies of the terrestrial cryosphere including snow, permafrost and lake/river ice – research on which led to him being awarded an Honorary Doctor of Environmental Studies by the University of Waterloo, where he also holds an Adjunct Professorship in Earth and Environmental Sciences. Some of his other scientific positions have included: President of the Canadian Geophysical Union and the Eastern Snow Conference society; Associate Editor for the journals Hydrological Processes and ASCE Journal of Cold Regions Engineering; Chief Canadian Delegate, UNESCO-International Hydrology Program-Northern Research Basins and Canadian Representative to UNESCO-IHP; Scientific Steering Group and Executive member of WCRP-CliC; Scientific Steering Group member to the U.S. Arctic-CHAMP (Community-wide Hydrologic and Analysis Program); Chair, International Working Group on Hydrology and the Cryosphere, for the International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARPII), and member Board of Directors for the Pacific Climate Impact Consortium. His publication list includes a number of major international scientific assessments, such as Lead Author (cryosphere, freshwater and polar regions chapters) for the 2nd and the 2008 Technical Report on Water for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), the 2008 Canadian National Assessment on Climate Change, and the 2013 Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) report. His most recent research focuses on the climatic redistribution of water resources in western and northern Canada, and the effects of changing freshwater ice regimes.

Arvid Bring – Stockholm University, Sweden – Co-chair

Dr. Arvid Bring has a M.Sc. in civil engineering and a Ph.D. in hydrology and water resources. He is a Researcher at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University. His main research interest is the interface between science and policy. He studies water and climate data, and is there interested in the role of scientific information as a foundation for policy decisions, and how the ties between research and environmental management can be strengthened.

Johanna Mård Karlsson – Uppsala University, Sweden – Co-chair

Johanna Mård has a M.Sc. in geology and a Ph.D. in hydrology and water resources. She is a Researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala University. Her main research interest is in water and climate, with emphasis on interactions between water-human-ecosystem responses to environmental change.  She studies freshwater changes and its interactions with ecosystem and cryosphere changes, as well as hydrological extremes (floods and droughts) and the co-evolution of water and society. She is also one of two convening authors for the cross-cutting scientific issues chapter in SWIPA II (Snow Water Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic; to be finalized in 2017), which is a follow up on the SWIPA assessment that was published in 2011.

John Walsh – University of Alaska, USA

Dr. John Walsh is Chief Scientist and a President’s Professor of Global Change at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), University of Alaska, Fairbanks. His primary research interests are: Arctic climate change over the decade-to-century timescale; predictability of climate change in high latitudes, sea ice variations; and extreme weather events in the context of climate change. Recently Dr. Walsh has worked to establish a long-term sea ice database for use in a formal, searchable Sea Ice Atlas interface. The research group for this project has established a common-format background for sea ice levels back to the 1850s, and they have examined the ability of models to simulate changes such as the recent rapid loss of summer sea ice. In addition to extensive publications, Dr. Walsh is the co-author of the textbook Severe and Hazardous Weather. He was the lead author for the cryosphere chapter of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) and a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007). He has served as a contributor on the subject of ongoing Arctic changes to a number of official reports, including the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) National Climate Assessment (NCA), for which he was a Convening Lead Author in Climate Change Science. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Climate. Prior to his position at the University of Alaska, Walsh spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana. He earned his Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974 and his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1970.

Larry Hinzman – University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Prof. Larry Hinzman is the Director of the International Arctic Research Center and is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Professor Hinzman’s primary research interests involve permafrost hydrology. He has conducted hydrological and meteorological field studies in the Alaskan Arctic continuously for over 30 years while frequently collaborating on complementary research in the Russian and Canadian Arctic. His research efforts have involved characterizing and quantifying hydrological processes and their inter-dependence with climate and ecosystem dynamics. Dr. Hinzman’s academic degrees were earned from South Dakota State University, Purdue University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Chemistry, Soil Science, Agronomy and Soil Physics. He has served as a member of the U.S. Polar Research Board, the U.S. Representative to the International Permafrost Association and is member of the Universities Council on Water Resources. He served as co-chair of the U.S. National Science Foundation study on the Arctic Freshwater Initiative and presently serves as chief scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Arctic Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment. He has served on the U.S. SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change) Observing Change Panel, and the Alaska Governor’s Sub-cabinet Economic Activities Technical Working Group. He serves on the International Advisory Board for the Korea Polar Research Institute and on the Scientific Steering Group for WRCP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC). He is an Advisory Committee Member for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. He is strongly committed to facilitating international partnerships to advance our understanding of the arctic system.

CliC, IASC, and AMAP

Jenny Baeseman, CliC Director
Volker Rachold, IASC Executive Secretary
Lars-Otto Reiersen, AMAP Executive Secretary

Atmosphere Component Team

Timo Vihma – Finnish Met Institute, Finland – Lead

Prof. Timo Vihma is a Research Professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) in Helsinki, Finland, Adjunct Professor at The University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, and Docent (Adjunct Professor) at the University of Helsinki. His fields of expertise are Arctic and Antarctic meteorology and climate, boundary-layer meteorology, sea ice and snow, atmosphere-ocean interaction, and numerical weather prediction.

Prof. Vihma has authored/co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and supervised/instructed eight PhD theses, and is supervising four PhD theses under work. He represents Finland in the Atmospheric Working Group of the International Arctic Science Commission (IASC), and in the steering group of the International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA). He leads the Arctic Climate Change Task in the EU project European-Russian Centre for Cooperation in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic environmental and climate research (EuRuCAS), and represents FMI in the Nordic Centre of Excellence: Stability and Variations of Arctic Land Ice (SVALI). He also leads two projects funded by the Academy of Finland: the Changing Arctic Climate System: Interaction of Stratosphere, Troposphere, and Sea Ice (CACSI), and Antarctic Meteorology and its Interactions with the Cryosphere and the Ocean (AMICO). Vihma earned his PhD in from the University of Helsinki in 1996.

James Screen – University of Exeter, UK – Co-Lead

Dr. James Screen is a NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Research Fellow and proleptic Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. He currently leads a three-year project entitled “Arctic Climate Change and its Mid-latitude Impacts”, in collaboration with the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre and the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of how the dramatic retreat of Arctic sea ice will impact weather and climate in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, and of the physical processes that govern these interactions. He completed his PhD in Environmental Sciences in 2009 at the University of East Anglia, UK and from 2009 to 2012 was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research investigates past and projected changes in polar climate, their mechanisms and causes, and their global implications. Dr Screen was awarded the IAMAS (International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences) Early Career Scientist Medal in 2013.

John Walsh – University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Dr. John Walsh is Chief Scientist and a President’s Professor of Global Change at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), University of Alaska, Fairbanks. His primary research interests are: Arctic climate change over the decade-to-century timescale; predictability of climate change in high latitudes, sea ice variations; and extreme weather events in the context of climate change. Recently Dr. Walsh has worked to establish a long-term sea ice database for use in a formal, searchable Sea Ice Atlas interface. The research group for this project has established a common-format background for sea ice levels back to the 1850s, and they have examined the ability of models to simulate changes such as the recent rapid loss of summer sea ice. In addition to extensive publications, Dr. Walsh is the co-author of the textbook Severe and Hazardous Weather. He was the lead author for the cryosphere chapter of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) and a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007). He has served as a contributor on the subject of ongoing Arctic changes to a number of official reports, including the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) National Climate Assessment (NCA), for which he was a Convening Lead Author in Climate Change Science. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Climate. Prior to his position at the University of Alaska, Walsh spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana. He earned his Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974 and his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1970.

Xiangdong Zhang – International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Dr. Xiangdong Zhang is a professor at the International Arctic Research Center and Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is interested in climate variability and global warming forced climate changes. Specifically, his recent research projects have focused on Arctic rapid climate change and Arctic-global climate interactions, tropical and North Pacific decadal variability, global warming forced extreme climate and weather events, Arctic and global freshwater and energy budgets and pathways, storm track dynamics and its interaction with large-scale circulations, and treatment/parameterization of physics in climate model. He has well collaborated with national and international colleagues in his studies. The recent major representative accomplishments include unraveling enhanced poleward atmospheric moisture transport and its role in accelerated Arctic hydrological cycle and river discharges, detecting spatial shift of the atmospheric circulation and its driving role in the recent rapid Arctic climate change, identifying poleward shift of storm track and intensification of Arctic storm activity, evaluating present-day simulations and future projections of Arctic sea ice changes by the CMIP climate models, and quantitatively delineating Arctic sea ice mass balance, and Arctic Ocean heat and freshwater budgets and pathways.

Micheal Tjernström – Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Dr. Michael Tjernström is a professor of Meteorology at Stockholm University since 1998 and has a BSc in Meteorology from Stockholm University, 1980, and a PhD, also in Meteorology in 1988, from Uppsala University, Sweden, where he worked as a Research Associate, Assistant professor and Lecturer prior to moving to Stockholm University. He also has had extended international visits, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, 1996-1997, the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, California, 2000 and 2003, and as a CIRES Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, 2005-2006, plus many shorter visits at different research institutes. He has over 30 years of experience in boundary-layer meteorology and has worked with Arctic meteorology since the last 15 years, working both with numerical modeling and with fieldwork in the central Arctic Ocean, participating and leading research cruises on the Swedish icebreaker Oden, in 2001, 2008 and 2014. His main research interests are boundary-layer processes, the physics of clouds and the surface energy balance over Arctic sea ice, atmospheric dynamics and long-range transport to the Arctic and Arctic climate and climate change in general. He has published over 100 original papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and has had several hundred research presentations at scientific conferences. He is also an active research communicator, frequently appearing in national newspapers, radio and television, as well as giving popular science lectures about climate and the Arctic at various venues. He is currently Chair for the Department of Meteorology at Stockholm University, Vice Chair for the IASC Atmospheric Working Group and a member of the board for the Bolin Centre for Climate Research and the Swedish Secretariat for Environmental Earth System Studies (SSEESS), and has served on the Science Advisory Committee for the European Centre of Medium range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and as Chair for the Science Steering Group of the International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC).

Valeria Popova – Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geography, Russia

Dr. Valeria V. Popova is a leading researcher of laboratory of climatology, Institute of Geography of Russian Academy of Sciences. Her research interests are on regional and spatial structure of climate variability, reaction of macro-scale atmospheric circulation on climate related anomalies of surface characteristics, influence of climate changes on snow cover, river runoff and permafrost.

Brandi Newton – University of Victoria, Canada

Brandi Newton has an MSc in hydro-climatology and is a PhD candidate at the Water and Climate Impacts Research Centre (W-CIRC) at the University of Victoria, in Victoria, BC, Canada.  Her current research focuses the temporal sequencing of atmospheric, hydrologic, and cryospheric conditions that generate extreme hydroclimatic events in Canada.  Brandi’s previous research includes evaluating the atmospheric drivers of water availability on two large river basins in western Canada as part of the Climatic Redistribution of western Canadian Water Resources (CROCWR) project.

Clara Deser – National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA

Dr. Clara Deser is Head of the Climate Analysis Section within the Climate and Global Dynamics Division at NCAR. Her research interests include diagnostic analysis of observed climate variability in the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice system, as well as future climate change. Clara co-chairs the CESM Climate Variability and Change Working Group. Community projects include: the CESM1(CAM5) Large Ensemble, the Climate Data Guide, and the Climate Variability Diagnostics Package.

Ecology Component Team

Fred Wrona – University of Victoria, Canada – Lead

Dr. Fred Wrona is Director of the Aquatic Ecosystem Impacts Research Branch/Division, National Water Research Institute, Environment Canada and a Research Professor in the Geography department of the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. He is responsible for the management and delivery of an interdisciplinary research program focusing on assessing environmental impacts on the hydrology and ecology of Canadian freshwater ecosystems. Areas of responsibility include research on: Climate Impacts on Hydrology and Ecology; Landuse and Landscape Disturbance Impacts; Biogeochemical Impacts; Cumulative Impacts of Multiple Environmental Stressors; and Aquatic Biodiversity. Dr. Wrona is Chair of the Canadian National Committee for IHP and Chief Canadian Delegate to the UNESCO International Hydrology Program (IHP), and Head of Delegation representing the Canadian Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) of the Arctic Council. His current research activities include: assessing effects of climate change/variability on the hydro-ecology of aquatic ecosystems; assessing the impacts of climate change/variability on the food web dynamics of Arctic freshwater ecosystems; and predicting effects of Multiple Environmental Stressors on Canadian Aquatic Ecosystems.

Margareta Johansson – Lund University, Sweden – Co-Lead

Dr. Margareta Johansson is based at the Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden. Dr. Johansson has a broad experience in Arctic research, ranging from glaciology/climatology to Arctic ecology and for the last eight years focussing on permafrost in a changing climate in northern Sweden. Her research experience includes helping to coordinate major environmental assessments such as a chapter in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) on terrestrial ecosystems, and international networks such as “A circumarctic network of Terrestrial Field Bases” (SCANNET). She is currently the Executive Secretary for a FP7 EU project INTERACT networking more than 60 research stations in the north and for a nordic top-level research initiative DEFROST and was a co-coordinator of the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) during 2006-2008 when it was initiated. Dr. Johansson was one of two convening lead authors for two chapters (snow and permafrost) of the SWIPA assessment (Snow Water Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic) that is a follow up on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment but are focussing on the cryosphere. The SWIPA report was published in December 2011.

Joseph Culp – University of New Brunswick’s Canadian Rivers Institute, Canada

Dr. Joseph Culp is a Senior Researcher Scientist with Environment Canada and Research Professor at the University of New Brunswick’s Canadian Rivers Institute. His research focuses on the impacts of multiple stressors on aquatic systems including the combined effects of nutrients, sediments and chemical stressors on taxonomic and trait composition of stream benthos. His research in Arctic freshwaters investigates benthic biodiversity and ecological function of northern and Arctic rivers. He currently investigates the role of permafrost slumping on aquatic biodiversity and is part of a team that is designing a long-term freshwater monitoring program for the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS). As international co-lead of the Arctic Council’s, Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program, Freshwater Monitoring Group, he was senior author of the “Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity Monitoring Plan”; this plan is currently being put into effect by the Arctic countries. For the International Polar Year initiative he led the “River Ecosystem Biodiversity Theme” for the ARCTIC-BIONET program. With others, he implements a Canadian NSERC-CREATE project aimed at training HQPs in watershed environmental research. He is a Past President of the international Society of Freshwater Science and regularly serves on international review panels (e.g., UNEP’s Convention on Biological Diversity, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology).

Alan Jenkins – Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK

Dr. Alan Jenkins‘ research focus is in hydrochemical modelling, in particular in the development of models for predicting the impact of air pollution on soils and surface waters.  Alan also has a wider interest in diffuse pollution and the transport of chemicals from soils to surface waters.  More widely, he has helped establish major experimental and monitoring studies both in the UK and further afield (Nepal and India) to assess and quantify hydrochemical pathways in relation to anthropogenic influences.  Alan is Hydrological Advisor for the UK with the World Meteorological Office, Chair of the UK National Focal Centre for the UNESCO International Hydrology Programme, Chair of the UK Committee for National and International Hydrology, UK delegate to the Governing Board of the EU Water Joint Programming Initiative, lead of the EU Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform Working Group on Management of Hydroclimatic Extremes, and UK representative to the European Network of Water Research Centres (EURAQUA). Alan was appointed to the role of CEH Deputy-Director in March 2011.

Isla Myers-Smith – University of Edinburgh, UK

Dr. Isla Myers-Smith is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. She studies the influence of warming climate on tundra vegetation change in northern ecosystems. In particular, her research has focused on the expansion of shrub species in arctic and alpine tundra. Her field researc is based in the Yukon Territory, but she also works with datasets spanning the tundra biome as a whole. She is a leader of international collaborative data synthesis efforts including the sTUNDRA working group investigating tundra greening and shrub expansion and coordinator of the ShrubHub research network of more than 100 participants investigating vegetation change in tundra ecosystems worldwide. She has additionally contributed to ArcticNet ecological assessments of the Canadian Arctic and the American NOAA state of the climate reports.

Links:
ShrubHub
http://shrubhub.biology.ualberta.ca/

sTUNDRA
http://www.idiv.de/sdiv/workshops/workshops-2014/stundra/?lang=en

Warwick Vincent – Université Laval, Québec, Canada

Dr. Warwick F. Vincent is a professor of biology at Laval University (Université Laval) in Quebec City, Canada, where he is also Scientific Director of the Center for Northern Studies (CEN) and Canada Research Chair in aquatic ecosystem studies. He obtained his PhD in ecology at the University of California, Davis, and undertook postdoctoral studies at the Freshwater Biological Association in the English Lake District. He worked as Field Director at Lake Titicaca, Peru-Bolivia, as research scientist on lake and oceanographic projects in New Zealand, as visiting professor at the University of Kyoto and the Lake Biwa Environmental Research Institute, Japan, and as a researcher on Antarctic and Arctic aquatic ecosystems. He has published several books and more than 300 scientific articles on aquatic ecosystems, with emphasis on high latitude lakes, rivers and coastal seas. He is the Canadian representative to IASC in the Terrestrial Working Group, and vice-chair of that group, and currently leads the Canadian project ‘Arctic Development and Adaptation to Permafrost in Transition’ (ADAPT).

Phil Wookey – Heriot-Watt University, UK

Phil Wookey is an ecosystems ecologist/biogeochemist, whose principal research focus is on high latitude ecosystems and environmental change. He is particularly keen to see process studies placed into earth system context. Over the years, Phil has been based at several institutions in the UK, and at Uppsala University, Sweden. Phil is passionate about ‘The North’, and attributes his love of cold, snowy and windswept places to his maternal heritage (from Sutherland, in the north of Scotland), going on expedition to North Iceland as an undergrad, reading Jack London novels, and possibly also to the lyrics of a Led Zeppelin song! Research highlights have been the publication of three International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) meta-analysis papers (in Ecological Monographs, PNAS and Ecology Letters), each of which had a major impact on the scientific community. In 2012 Phil and colleagues’ work for the International Polar Year ‘ABACUS’ project was published in Nature Climate Change. This research hints at some looming and unwelcome ‘surprises’ in the global greenhouse, and challenges the validity of some of the basic logic underpinning key models of the global carbon cycle and climate system. This was followed-up by a related paper in Nature, in September 2014.

Hydrology Component Team

Irina Fedorova – Otto Schmidt Laboratory, Russia – Lead

Dr. Irina Fedorova defended her thesis at St. Petersburg State University in two specialities: “Land Hydrology, water resources, hydrochemistry” and “Geoecology” in 2003. Then she worked at Land Hydrology department, faculty of Geography and Geoecology, St. Petersburg State University. Since 2009 Dr. Irina Fedorova has been working as a Director from Russian side of Otto Schmidt Laboratory for Polar and Marine Research at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (St. Petersburg, Russia), and as an Associate Professor at St. Petersburg State University (part time).

She takes part in national and international projects. Current research projects include the Russian-German Program “Laptev Sea System” and “CarboPerm” project. Dr. Fedorova is a Member of the Hydrology, geography, and geoecology section of the Advisory board of Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute and a Member of Russian Geographical Society.

Dr. Fedorova has taken part in different Arctic and Antarctic expeditions: international expeditions to the Lena River delta “Lena – 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013”, national expeditions to Yamal and Gydan peninsulas “Yamal-Arctic 2012, 2013”, summer season of the 52d Russian Antarctic Expedition to Schirmaher oasis, a chief of student expeditions to the Wight Sea (1998-2001, 2009, 2010), Baykal Lake catchment (2000-2008, 2012, 2013) etc.

Lectures at St. Petersburg State University: for bachelors “Swamp Hydrology”, “Irrigation Hydrology”, “Flows dynamic and River-bed processes”; for masters “Particularities of Polar region water objects”, for international master program POMOR – “Arctic lake-swamp system” and “Particularities of Antarctic lakes”. She is a co-leader of Module 3 “Polar & Marine Ecosystems: Structure, functioning and vulnerability“ of the international master program POMOR (Polar and Mariner research). Every year she has a students for Diploma and courses works.

In 2005 she was rewarded with the Certificate of Merit in the context of 80-years jubilee of Geography and Geoecology Faculty of St. Petersburg State University and in 2008 she received the Diploma of Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

Arvid Bring – Stockholm University, Sweden – Co-Lead

Dr. Arvid Bring has a M.Sc. in civil engineering and a Ph.D. in hydrology and water resources. He is a Researcher at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University. His main research interest is the interface between science and policy. He studies water and climate data, and is there interested in the role of scientific information as a foundation for policy decisions, and how the ties between research and environmental management can be strengthened.

Ming-ko Woo – McMaster University, Canada

Dr. Ming-ko Woo studied Geography and Geology at the University of Hong Kong, and obtained his doctoral degree from the University of British Columbia. He is a Professional Hydrologist of the American Institute of Hydrology, a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America; and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. His specialization is in snow, permafrost, wetlands, and water related research. Dr. Woo has conducted field studies in the far North for over three decades, working in a range of environments, from the polar desert of the High Arctic, subapline woodlands in the subarctic, to the extensive wetlands of Hudson Bay Lowlands. He has also investigated drought problems in northern Nigeria and the Canadian Prairies, soil erosion in south China, climate variability and hydrology of large-basins in northwestern Canada. Many of his former students are now established professors or researchers in government institutions, broadening his effort in hydrologic education and research. For his contributions, Dr. Woo was awarded the Tuzo Wilson Medal, the highest honour conferred by the Canadian Geophysical Union.

Yonas Dibike – Watershed Hydrology and Ecology Research Division, Environment Canada, Canada

Dr. Yonas Dibike has a M.Sc. in Hydraulic Engineering and a Ph.D. in Hydroinformatics from IHE-Delft and TU-Delft in the Netherlands. He is currently a Physical Scientist under the Northern Hydrology and Climate program of the Watershed Hydrology and Ecology Research Division, with Environment Canada. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of geography and work at the Water & Climate Impact Research Center (W-CIRC), University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.  His primary research interest is in hydro-climate analysis, large-scale hydrologic modelling and the various impacts of climate variability and change on hydrology and water resources, primarily in cold region environments. He is currently a study lead on “Hydrological and Hydraulic Modelling in the Lower Athabasca River Basin” for the EC/Alberta Joint Oil Sands Monitoring and research Program. He also contributes to the research programs on the climatic redistribution of water resources in western and northern Canada and the effects of changing climate on freshwater ice regimes.

Larry Hinzman – University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Prof. Larry Hinzman is the Director of the International Arctic Research Center and is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Professor Hinzman’s primary research interests involve permafrost hydrology. He has conducted hydrological and meteorological field studies in the Alaskan Arctic continuously for over 30 years while frequently collaborating on complementary research in the Russian and Canadian Arctic. His research efforts have involved characterizing and quantifying hydrological processes and their inter-dependence with climate and ecosystem dynamics. Dr. Hinzman’s academic degrees were earned from South Dakota State University, Purdue University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Chemistry, Soil Science, Agronomy and Soil Physics. He has served as a member of the U.S. Polar Research Board, the U.S. Representative to the International Permafrost Association and is member of the Universities Council on Water Resources. He served as co-chair of the U.S. National Science Foundation study on the Arctic Freshwater Initiative and presently serves as chief scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Arctic Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment. He has served on the U.S. SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change) Observing Change Panel, and the Alaska Governor’s Sub-cabinet Economic Activities Technical Working Group. He serves on the International Advisory Board for the Korea Polar Research Institute and on the Scientific Steering Group for WRCP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC). He is an Advisory Committee Member for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. He is strongly committed to facilitating international partnerships to advance our understanding of the arctic system.

Sebastian Mernild – Center for Scientific Studies, Chile

Sebastian H. Mernild has achieved a master degree in 2001 and a PhD. degree in 2006 in climate change, glaciology, and hydrology from University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2002 he was awarded the University of Copenhagen Silver Medal for a Price Dissertation in Physical Geography.

He is currently employed as climate polar research scientist at Center for Scientific Studies in Chile. Before, he worked six years in the US at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. He works with climate change in Greenland and the effect on the ice cap and glaciers related to mass change and freshwater runoff. In addition, he works with remote sensing and ‘state of the art’ snow and glacier modeling tools, modeling the ice sheet and glaciers in past, present, and future time perspectives.

His research has been focusing on local, regional, and global modeling using a wide variety of atmospheric and terrestrial models and observations with a specific focus on understanding and simulating land-atmosphere interactions related to snow, glacier ice, and freshwater runoff. Develop and implement methodologies to allow these models to efficiently and realistically perform annual integrations, and seasonal to daily evolution of snow cover distributions, glacier and ice cap surface and dynamic processes, and hydrologic processes. Use these models to perform simulations in support of snow-ice-water-atmosphere interaction studies.

He has several times been a visiting scientist at Colorado State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, New York University, USA, Hokkido University, Japan, and participated in courses at the University Center in Svalbard, Norway.

He has been co-author on different international reports e.g., the annual Arctic Report Card from NOAA, and he is a contribution author on the upcoming IPCC AR5 report. Further, he is the Danish representative of the International Commission on Snow and Ice Hydrology (ICSIH), under International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS).

He has communicated his interest and knowledge about climate change and its effect on snow, ice, and hydrological conditions in the Arctic region in both international peer-reviewed scientific journals, in newspapers, radio, and TV, and in the form of conference presentations.

Private Mernild is also trained Captain in the Danish Army, and have served in both Kosovo (2002) and Afghanistan (2006).

Olga Semenova – State Hydrological Institute, Russia

Dr. Olga Semenova is an expert in the field of hydrological modelling. She obtained her PhD from State Hydrometeorological University in 2008 in hydrology. Her research interests include understanding hydrological processes in cold climates and representing them in hydrological models. Currently she is a researcher in State Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia and is an associated professor in St. Petersburg State University and leading researcher in Gidrotehproekt Ltd. She is the leader of Hydrograph model Research Group.

Sveta Stuefer – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Dr. Sveta Stuefer is Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA. Her specialization is in the cold regions hydrology with an emphasis on the snow-related processes. Dr. Stuefer received her Ph.D. from the Russian State Hydrometeorological University, St. Petersburg, Russia. She joined the Water and Environmental Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2003 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow.

Johanna Mård Karlsson – Stockholm University, Sweden

Johanna Mård Karlsson has a M.Sc. in Geology and is a Phd candidate in hydrology and water resources at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University. Her dissertation topic is Mapping Hydrological Change in the Arctic and addresses the interactions between ice-water-biogeochemical responses to climatic and other changes, and the effects of linked hydro-climatic changes on Arctic ecosystems. Her PhD project is carried out within the linked frameworks of the Bolin Centre for Climate Research and strategic research project EkoKlim (a multiscale cross-disciplinary approach to study the climate change effects on ecosystem services and Biodiversity) at Stockholm University. She plans to defend her thesis in 2014.

Modeling Component Team

Marika Holland – NCAR, USA – Lead

Dr. Marika M. Holland is a Senior Scientist in the Oceanography Section of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of NCAR’s Earth System Laboratory. Her research interests are focused on the role of sea ice in the climate system, including secular sea ice change, ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions, abrupt high latitude climate change, and polar climate variability. Dr. Holland currently serves as Chief Scientist for the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project and previously served as co-chair for the CESM Polar Climate Working Group. She has contributed to sea ice model developments for the Community Earth System Model and used CESM to study various aspects of the high-latitude climate system, including the investigation of inherent sea ice predictability in the northern and southern hemispheres and projected changes in Arctic freshwater budgets. Dr. Holland received her Ph.D. in Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences from the University of Colorado in 1997 and performed a Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Victoria in British Columbia before joining the scientific staff of NCAR’s Climate and Global Dynamic Division in 1999. www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/mholland/

Camille Lique – University of Oxford, UK – Co-Lead

Camille Lique is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Earth Sciences in the University of Oxford (UK). She have received her PhD in 2010 from the University of Western Brittany (Brest, France). In 2011, she received a 2-year fellowship from JISAO and the Program on Climate Change of the University of Washington (Seattle, USA). She is a physical oceanographer. Her research investigates the dynamics of the Arctic Ocean, using numerical models of different complexity and observations.

James Screen – University of Exeter, UK

Dr. James Screen is a NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Research Fellow and proleptic Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. He currently leads a three-year project entitled “Arctic Climate Change and its Mid-latitude Impacts”, in collaboration with the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre and the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of how the dramatic retreat of Arctic sea ice will impact weather and climate in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, and of the physical processes that govern these interactions. He completed his PhD in Environmental Sciences in 2009 at the University of East Anglia, UK and from 2009 to 2012 was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research investigates past and projected changes in polar climate, their mechanisms and causes, and their global implications. Dr Screen was awarded the IAMAS (International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences) Early Career Scientist Medal in 2013.

David Lawrence – National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA

Dr. David Lawrence is a Scientist III in the Terrestrial Sciences Section of the Climate and Global Dyamics Division of NCAR’s Earth System Laboratory. His research interests center around Earth system modeling, specifically land surface processes and climate change, with an emphasis on Arctic terrestrial climate system feedbacks, especially including the impact of projected permafrost degradation on carbon, water, and energy cycles. He is also interested in land-atmosphere interactions and how land use contributes to climate and climate change. Dr. Lawrence has been co-chair of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Land Model Working Group for the past 8 years and is currently serving as a member of the CESM Scientific Steering Committee. David coordinated (and contributed to) the development of several recent versions of the Community Land Model including CLM3.5, CLM4, and CLM4.5 including developments related to the representation of permafrost thermodynamics, hydrology, and carbon cycling. He is a co-chair of the Permafrost Carbon RCN Model Integration group, a co-lead of the Water and Energy group of the International Land Model Benchmarking project, and a panel member of the Global Land-Atmosphere System Study within GEWEX. Dr. Lawrence received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Colorado and completed a Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Reading in England before coming to NCAR in 2004.

Yonas Dibike – Watershed Hydrology and Ecology Research Division, Environment Canada, Canada

Dr. Yonas Dibike has a M.Sc. in Hydraulic Engineering and a Ph.D. in Hydroinformatics from IHE-Delft and TU-Delft in the Netherlands. He is currently a Physical Scientist under the Northern Hydrology and Climate program of the Watershed Hydrology and Ecology Research Division, with Environment Canada. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of geography and work at the Water & Climate Impact Research Center (W-CIRC), University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. His primary research interest is in hydro-climate analysis, large-scale hydrologic modelling and the various impacts of climate variability and change on hydrology and water resources, primarily in cold region environments. He is currently a study lead on “Hydrological and Hydraulic Modelling in the Lower Athabasca River Basin” for the EC/Alberta Joint Oil Sands Monitoring and research Program. He also contributes to the research programs on the climatic redistribution of water resources in western and northern Canada and the effects of changing climate on freshwater ice regimes.

Resources Component Team

Arne Instanes – Instanes Polar AS, Norway – Lead

Dr. Arne Instanes has more than 20 years’ experience in geotechnical research, development and engineering consultancy business. Instanes is an adjunct professor of geotechnical engineering at UNIS – the University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, and Bergen University College. He is the Academic Director of Instanes POLAR AS, an independent consulting engineering company that commenced on 1 September 2008 working at the interface between research and consulting engineering business. Dr.Ing. Instanes research focus on cold regions engineering including work on, 1. Stress-strain relationships in frozen soil, snow and ice. 2. Foundations, civil engineering and construction work in cold regions. 3. Thermal analysis of engineering structures. 4. The effect of climate change on infrastructure. Other interests include Permafrost engineering, frozen ground engineering, Climate change impact assessments and Infrastructure.

Vasily Kokorev – State Hydrological Institute, Russia – Co-Lead

Vasily Kokroev specializes in modern climate change in the Arctic. His main research interests are GCMs evaluation, precipitation extremes, tipping points, permafrost modeling and carbon cycle. Since 2007, he has been working in climate department of the State Hydrological Institute (SHI) as a research fellow. He has contributed to more than 20 different research projects mostly focusing on climate change impacts in the Arctic. During his time at the SHI Vasily was honored to take part in the preparation of IPCC AR5 WG2 with a role of a chapter scientist in “Polar regions” chapter. Currently, he is the lead scientist in Russian-China collaborative project on permafrost modeling, ACAA contributing author, and a Ph.D. student in the Saint-Petersburg State University.

Richard Janowicz – Yukon Department of Environment, Canada

Dr. Richard Janowicz is the principal water quantity specialist for the Yukon Government with 35 years of professional experience in cold regions operational and research hydrology including work in flood forecasting, break-up monitoring, ice jam analyses, flow frequency analyses, watershed modelling, water balance studies, climate change assessment and industrial environmental impact assessments. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Wolf Creek Research Basin in 1992 and has worked on climate change issues for 25 years. He has degrees from the University of British Columbia, University of Alaska and University of Saskatchewan and has 50 publications in process hydrology, modelling and climate change.

Knut Sand – Statkraft, Norway

Dr. Knut Sand has a PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources Science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He has a varied professional background from holding positions as research scientist at SINTEF (foundation for industrial and technical research), associate professor at the university centre in Svalbard and senior advisor at SWECO (engineering company).  Since 2007, he has been working at Statkraft as a hydrologist. He works on hydrological modelling and short-term runoff forecasting for Statkraft’s hydropower system in the Nordic countries. He develops methods for operational assessment of snow water equivalent in hydropower catchment areas and he is the principal coordinator of R&D projects in hydrology in Statkraft.

Oddbjørn Bruland – Multiconsult, Norway

Dr. Oddbjørn Bruland is currently working as manager of the hydrology section at Multiconsult in Trondheim. He is also a professor in Economic Assessment of Hydropower Development at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Prior to that, he worked as a hydrologist at Statkraft where his main task was to initialize and develop projects focusing on improved hydropower scheduling. Since 1991, he has worked in hydrology R&D, engineering, water resources and technical planning in various sectors such as academia, research institutes, consultancy and industry. He holds a PhD in Polar Hydrology and Climate Change since 2001. He also has an MBA from NTNU Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH) and MIT Sloan.