linda o. mearns
Linda O. Mearns is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment (ISSE). Linda O. Mearns is Director of the Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UCLA. She has performed research and published mainly in the areas of climate change scenario formation and quantifying uncertainties and climate change impacts on agro-ecosystems. She has particularly worked extensively with regional climate models. She has most recently published papers on the effect of uncertainty in climate change scenarios on agricultural and economic impacts of climate change, and quantifying uncertainty of regional climate change. She has been an author in the IPCC Climate Change 1995, 2001, and 2007 Reports regarding climate variability, impacts of climate change on agriculture, regional projections of climate change, and uncertainty in future projections of climate change. For the 2007 Report she is Lead Author for the chapter on Regional Projections of Climate Change in Working Group 1 and for the chapter on New Assessment Methods in Working Group 2. She is also an author on two Synthesis Products of the US Climate Change Science Program. She leads the muliti-agency supported North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP), which is providing multiple high-resolution climate change scenarios for the North American impacts community. She is a member of the National Research Council Climate Research Committee (CRC) and Human Dimensions of Global Change (HDGC) Committee. She was made a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in January 2006.
Major Research Programs:
The Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Program (WCIASP).
Within this program, Mearns' personal research includes the development of regional-scale probabilistic information about future climate and the workshop on Climate and Health
The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP)
The Wisconsin Health Project
Refereed Publications:
Smith, R.L., C. Tebaldi, D. Nychka and L.O.Mearns, 2007: Bayesian modeling of uncertainty in ensembles of climate models. Journal of the American Statistical Association (accepted).
Sain, S. R., S. Jagtap, L. Mearns, and D. Nychka, 2006: A multivariate spatial model for soil water profiles, Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics 11:462-480.
Christensen, J, B. Hewitson, and 15 co-authors including L. O. Mearns 2007: In IPCC WG1, Fourth Assessment Report, Chapter 11, Regional Climate Projections (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press).
Carter, T., R. Jones, X. Lu, and 6 co-authors including L. O. Mearns 2007: IPCC WG2, Fourth Assessment Report, Chapter 2, New Assessment Methods and the Characterisation of Future Conditions. (in press - Cambridge U. Press).
Parson. E., and 10 co-authors, including L. O. Mearns, 2007. Global Change Scenarios: Their Development and Use. CCSP Synthesis Product 2.1b. CCSP: June 2007.
Gutowski, W., G. Hegerl, G. Holland, T. Knutson, L . Mearns, R. Stouffer, P. Webster, F. Zwiers, 2007: How well do we understand the causes of observed changes in extremes, and what are the projected future changes? Chapter 3 in: Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate, CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.3. Final Order Draft June 2007.
Presentations
Mearns, L. O., Overview of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Naropa University, November 2006 (Invited)
L. Mearns and C. Tebaldi, Quantifying Uncertainty of Climate Change for Use in Decision Making. AGU, December 2006, San Francisco.
L. Mearns, Progress and Pitfalls in the Use of Global Change Scenarios in Water Resources Management. AGU, December 2006, San Francisco. (Invited).
L. Mearns, Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report: Regional Projections. Tourism and Climate Workshop, January 2007, NCAR, Boulder (Invited).
L. Mearns, Overview of the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment. Visit of Pakistani Scientists to NCAR, February 2007.
L. Mearns, The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program, Meeting on Climate Scenarios of High Definition. Environment Canada. Vancouver, March 2007 (Invited).
L. Mearns, The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. Meeting of the Association of American Geographers. San Francisco, April 13, 2007.
L. Mearns, Panel Presentation on Institutional Adaptation to Climate Change – National Summit on Coping with Climate Change, U. Michigan, Ann Arbor, April (Invited)
L. Mearns, Use of Regional Climate Models to Produce High Resolution Climate Information about the Future. Dividing the Waters - Science for Judges IV. Boulder, May 14-15. (Invited)
L. Mearns, IPCC Regional Climate Projections. Western Governor's Association and Western Water Council Meeting. Irvine , CA , May 16, 2007. (Invited)
L. Mearns, Overview of Progress in NARCCAP. IUGG/IAMAS, Perugia, Italy, July 9, 2007
L. Mearns, Changes in the Frequency of Societally Relevant Extremes over North America (Invited), IUGG/IAMAS, Perugia , Italy , July 9, 2007
R. Leung and L. Mearns, Use of Regional Modeling Results in Impacts Research, Energy Modeling Forum, Climate Impacts Workshop, Snowmass, CO August 2007
L. O. Mearns, Climatic Change and Adaptation: An Overview. Presentation to the Staff from the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. August 20, 2007. NCAR, Boulder, CO.