William Richard Peltier, Ph.D.,

D.Sc. A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

( hc

(born 1943), is university professor of physics at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. He is director of the Centre for Global Change Scienc

past principal investigator of the Polar Climate Stability Networ

and the scientific director of Canada's largest supercomputer centre, SciNetbr>
He is a fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

, 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 ...

, of 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 ...

, and of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick University in Christiania was establis ...

.. His research interests include: atmospheric and oceanic waves and turbulence, geophysical fluid dynamics, physics of the planetary interior, and planetary climate. He is notable for his seminal contributions to the understanding of the dynamics of the deep Earth, both concerning the nature of the mantle convection process and the circulation of the visco-elastic interior caused by the loading of the surface by continental scale ice sheet loads. His gravitationally self-consistent global theory of Ice-Earth-Ocean interactions has become widely employed internationally in the explanation of the changes of sea level that accompany both the growth and decay of grounded ice on the continents, both during the Late Quaternary era of Earth history and under modern global warming conditions. His models of the space-time variations of continental ice cover since the last maximum of glaciation are employed universally to provide the boundary conditions needed to enable modern coupled climate models to be employed to reconstruct past climate conditions. A most notable contribution to work of this kind has been his theory of the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger millennial timescale oscillation of glacial climate. He has been the primary contributor to the global reconstructions ICE-3G, ICE-4G, ICE-5G (VM2), and the most recent ICE-6G (VM5)model. These models are important for the quantification of

post-glacial rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound an ...

and late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

variations in

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

Education

* 1967 B.Sc.,

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

* 1969 M.Sc. in Physics,

* 1971 Ph.D. in Physics,

Teaching appointments

* 1971-72 Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Toronto * 1973-74 Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto * 1974-77 Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto * 1978 Visiting Professor, Geophysics and Space Physics, U.C.L.A. * 1978-79 Steacie Fellowship Leave,

NCAR 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 ...

, Boulder, Colorado * 1977-79 Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto * 1979-93 Full Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto * 1987-88 Guggenheim Fellowship Leave, DAMTP and Bullard Laboratories,

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, U.K. * 1993- University Professor, University of Toronto * 2002-2003 Sabbatical Leave, Professeur Invité, Institute de Physique du Globe de Paris,

Université Paris VII Paris Diderot University, also known as Paris 7 (), was a French university located in Paris, France. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Diderot merged with Paris ...

* 2004 Professor Invité, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris VII * 2005–present Adjunct professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences,

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

* 2006 Visiting professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences and Bjerknes center for Marine Research, University of Bergen, Norway * 2009 Professeur Invite Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, 2009

Notable publications

Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017

Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018

The Antarctica component of postglacial rebound model ICE-6G_C (VM5a) based on GPS positioning, exposure age dating of ice thicknesses, and relative sea level histories

Space geodesy constrains ice age terminal deglaciation: The global ICE-6G_C (VM5a) model

Comment on "An Assessment of the ICE-6G_C (VM5a) Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Model" by Purcell et al.

Global glacial ice volume and Last Glacial Maximum duration from an extended Barbados sea level record

The modern and glacial overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean in PMIP coupled model simulations

Palaeoclimate

High tide of the warm Pliocene: Implications of global sea level for Antarctic deglaciation

A data-calibrated distribution of deglacial chronologies for the North American ice complex from glaciological modeling

The angular velocities of the plates and the velocity of Earth's centre from space geodesy

Honours and awards

* Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, 1977-1979 * E.W.R. Steacie Memorial fellowship, 1978-1980 * Kirk Bryan Award

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hi ...

* Killam Senior Research Fellowship

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

. 1980-1982 * Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, 1986- * Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 1986- * John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1986-1988 * Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 1988- * Senior fellow of Massey College University of Toronto, 1989- * Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, 1991- * Patterson Medal of the Atmospheric Environment Service of Canada, 1992 * Appointment to the rank of university professor, highest rank at the University of Toronto, 1993- * Distinguished Lecturer of the

Canadian Geophysical Union The Canadian Geophysical Union () (CGU) is a society dedicated to the study of Earth and its space environment, including the Sun and solar system. History The organization began in 1945 as an Associate Committee of the National Research Council ...

, 1999–2000 * Science Watch listing as the fifth most highly cited earth scientists in the world, all disciplines included, 2001 * Elected as Foreign Member to Fellowship in the

, 2004 *

Bancroft Award The Bancroft Award is an award of the Royal Society of Canada "given for publication, instruction, and research in the earth sciences that have conspicuously contributed to public understanding and appreciation of the subject". The award was endow ...

of the Royal Society of Canada, 2004 * J. Tuzo Wilson Medal of the Canadian Geophysical Union, 2004 * Vetlesen Prize, the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation of New York, 2004 * Leiv Erikson Fellow, Norwegian Research Council, Bjerknes Institute for Climate Research, Univ. of Bergen, 2006 * Miroslaw Romanowski Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, 2006 * Milutin Milankovic Medal of the

European Geosciences Union The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet". The organisation has headq ...

, 2008web announcement
* CAP Gold medal for Achievement in Physics Canadian Association of Physicists, 2009 * Charles A. Whitten Medal

, 2010 * The Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science - Earth Systems Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, 2010 * The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in Science and Engineering

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; , CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. NSERC directly funds university professors and students as ...

, 2011 * Killam Prize in Natural Science

, 2012 * W. A. Johnston Award from the Canadian Quaternary Association (CANQUA), 2018 * Gold Medal and Fellow of the

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG; , UGGI) is an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the scientific study of Earth and its space environment using geophysical and geodetic techniques. The IUGG is a me ...

(IUGG), 2019

References

External links

Home page of Dr. Peltier

* March 27, 2007 Toronto Star article "Reassessing the gravity of the situation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peltier, William Richard 1943 births Living people Canadian physicists Canadian climatologists Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Fellows of the American Meteorological Society Wilson Medal recipients University of Toronto alumni University of British Columbia alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Presidents of the Canadian Geophysical Union Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates Vetlesen Prize winners