Gerald A. Meehl
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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 Foundat ...
since 2001.


Early life and education

Meehl, who was born in
Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, is the son of a family of
wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
farmers from
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. 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: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...
.


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, published in 2007. He is an ISI highly cited researcher, and is known for his research linking global warming to
extreme weather Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Extreme events are based on a location's recorded weat ...
. 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 thermodynamics, thermod ...
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 his narrow electoral college vict ...
. His research has also shown that record high temperatures in the
continental United States The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...
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, sometimes described as extreme heat, is a period of abnormally hot weather generally considered to be at least ''five consecutive days''. A heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the area and ...
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 to publish one such study in ''
Nature Climate Change ''Nature Climate Change'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio covering all aspects of research on global warming, the current climate change, especially its effects. It was established in 2011 as the contin ...
'' 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 The Interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO) is an oceanographic/meteorological phenomenon similar to the Pacific decadal oscillation The Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) is a robust, recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability c ...
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 a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...
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 science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...
in 2014. In 2023 he received the Sverdrup Gold Medal Award of the American Meteorological Society.Sverdrup Gold Medal Award 2023
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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 or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...
. 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 largest and most populous island of American Samoa and is part of the archipelago of the Samoan Islands. It is the third largest island in the Samoan Islands chain of the Central Pacific. It is located roughly northeast of Brisba ...
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