Piers Forster is a Professor of Physical Climate Change and Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the
University of Leeds. A physicist by training, his research focuses on quantifying the different human causes of climate change and the way the Earth responds. He is best known for his work on
radiative forcing,
climate sensitivity,
contrails and
Climate engineering. He has contributed heavily to the writing of
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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 ...
(IPCC) reports, including acting as a Lead Author for the
Fourth and
Fifth Assessment Reports, and a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the
Sixth Report. He also acted as a Lead Author of the IPCC 2018
Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.
Career
Forster was educated at
Imperial College
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
,
London where he gained a
BSc in
Physics in 1990. He was subsequently awarded a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in
Meteorology by the
University of Reading in 1994. After research posts at the Universities of
Reading,
Colorado and
Melbourne he was appointed a
Reader at the
University of Leeds in 2005. He has been
Professor of Physical Climate Change at
Leeds since 2008.
Forster was principal investigator of the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals project. He has doubts as to whether
geoengineering
Climate engineering (also called geoengineering) is a term used for both carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), also called solar geoengineering, when applied at a planetary scale.IPCC (2022Chapter 1: Introduction and F ...
could be deployed effectively. Forster is also trustee of a UK rainforest-protection charity
United Bank of Carbon
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
.
He has a number of UK government and industry roles including being a member of the UK
Committee on Climate Change.
Awards
2011
Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award
2019
American Geophysical Union Fellow
References
Year of birth missing (living people)
British meteorologists
Living people
Alumni of Imperial College London
British climatologists
Academics of the University of Leeds
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contributing authors
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors
Atmospheric scientists
Alumni of the University of Reading
Academics of the University of Reading
University of Colorado faculty
University of Melbourne faculty
Fellows of the American Geophysical Union
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