A. Scott Denning is a climate scientist and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, whose faculty he joined in 1998. He is known for his research into atmosphere-biosphere interactions, the global

carbon cycle The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth. Carbon is the main component of biological compounds as well as a major componen ...

, and

atmospheric carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is a trace gas that plays an integral part in the greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, photosynthesis and oceanic carbon cycle. It is one of several greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere that are contribu ...

. He firmly supports action to avoid climate change. He has also argued that, if no action is taken on the matter, global warming could make the climate of Colorado resemble that of southern New Mexico, Texas and Mexico.

Education and scientific career

Denning received his BA in geology from the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a public land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. It is classifi ...

and his MS and PhD in atmospheric science from Colorado State University in 1993 and 1994, respectively. He then spent two years as an assistant professor in the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the

University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

. He joined the faculty of Colorado State University in 1998, and become the director of education for the Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes in 2006. Denning also worked on the

Orbiting Carbon Observatory The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a NASA satellite mission intended to provide global space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (). The original spacecraft was lost in a launch failure on 24 February 2009, when the payload ...

's scientific team.

Debates

Denning has appeared twice at the

Heartland Institute The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking. Founded in 1984, it worked wit ...

's International Conference on Climate Change. In 2011, Denning debated skeptical climatologist Roy Spencer at the 6th International Conference on Climate Change.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denning, Scott American climatologists American atmospheric scientists Colorado State University faculty University of Maine alumni Colorado State University alumni Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)