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Gerald Allen "Jerry" Meehl (born 1951) is a climate scientist who has been a senior scientist at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR ) is a US federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and funded by the National Science Founda ...
since 2001.


Early life and education

Meehl, who was born in
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
, is the son of a family of
wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeolog ...
farmers from Hudson. It was the conversations Meehl had with his father about the future weather, and how that might affect their crops, that sparked his interest in the weather and climate. He received his B.S. (with distinction), M.S., and PhD from the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...
.


Scientific career

He was a lead author of the sixth chapter of the
IPCC Second Assessment Report The Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 1995, is an assessment of the then available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change. The report was split into four parts ...
, published in 1995, and helped oversee the chapter about climate projections in the
IPCC AR4 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
, published in 2007. He is an ISI highly cited researcher, and is known for his research linking global warming to
extreme weather Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a locati ...
. He has also done much research into the use of
global climate model A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms f ...
s. One of these studies, in which Meehl et al. showed that models could not reproduce recent warming without including anthropogenic influences, was featured in a 2004 review of climate science by the
George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic i ...
. His research has also shown that record high temperatures in the
continental United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
were more than twice as common as record lows in the 2000s, that it may soon be possible to predict
heat wave A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
s three weeks in advance (rather than 10 days, which is the best current forecasts can do), and that the
global warming hiatus A global warming hiatus, also sometimes referred to as a global warming pause or a global warming slowdown, is a period of relatively little change in globally averaged surface temperatures. In the current episode of global warming many such 15 ...
observed over the last 15 years or so may be caused by more heat accumulating in the deep ocean. When Meehl joined
Matthew England Matthew England is a physical oceanographer and climate scientist. He is currently Scientia Professor of Ocean & Climate Dynamics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Education In 1987 England completed a B.Sc. (Honours Cl ...
to publish one such study in ''
Nature Climate Change ''Nature Climate Change'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group covering all aspects of research on global warming, the current climate change, especially its effects. It was established in 2011 as the ...
'' in 2014, Meehl said that this study "...makes the case that, though other factors could contribute somewhat to the early-2000s hiatus, the Pacific is a major driving force in producing naturally-occurring climate variability that can overwhelm the warming from ever-increasing greenhouse gases to produce the hiatus." He also proposed that this occurred because of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation switching to its negative phase. In September 2014, Meehl et al. published another study on this topic, in which they attempted to simulate the hiatus with currently available climate models. They found that these models were able to simulate the hiatus, and concluded that it was largely caused by natural variability.


Awards and honors

In 1999, Meehl received the editor's award from the ''
Journal of Climate The ''Journal of Climate'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published semi-monthly by the American Meteorological Society. It covers research that advances basic understanding of the dynamics and physics of the climate system on larg ...
''. He also received the Jule G. Charney Award from the
American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance t ...
in 2009, and was elected a fellow of the
American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's ...
in 2014.


Other writings

Meehl has also written several historical books about
World War II in the Pacific The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
. His interest in World War II began when he heard his uncles tell stories about their experiences fighting in the war when he was growing up, and he focused on the Pacific because he was sent on an expedition to
Tutuila Tutuila is the main island of American Samoa (and its largest), and is part of the archipelago of Samoan Islands. It is the third largest island in the Samoan Islands chain of the Central Pacific. It is located roughly northeast of Brisbane, A ...
while an undergraduate at the University of Colorado.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meehl, Gerald 1951 births Living people People from Denver University of Colorado alumni American climatologists Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors National Center for Atmospheric Research faculty Historians of World War II Fellows of the American Geophysical Union