Alternative Climate Normals Workshop

Alternative Climate Normals and
Impacts to the Energy Industry
April 24 and 25, 2012
8:30am to 4:30pm
Renaissance Hotel (Top of the Plaza Room)

31 Woodfin Street
Asheville, North Carolina 28801

Alternative Climate Normals: Is Warmer Really the New Normal? What’s the Alternative?
What are the Impacts to the Energy Industry?

The Climate Normals workshop is a forum to bring together scientists, regulators and energy industry executives to share information and offer the opportunity to develop new alternatives for the energy industry. In doing so, this workshop is intended to foster an open dialogue between the needs of the industry, the regulatory community, and the roles and needs of the research and scientific community.

Background

Over the past year, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) issued a complete set of new 1981-2010 Normals. Climate Normals are the latest three-decade averages of climatological variables, including temperature and precipitation. Meteorologists and climatologists regularly use Normals for placing recent climate conditions into a historical context. In addition to weather and climate comparisons, Normals are utilized in seemingly countless applications across a variety of sectors. These include: regulation of power companies, energy load forecasting, crop selection and planting times, construction planning, building design, and many others.

Climate Normals, however, were never designed to be metrics of climate change. In fact, when the widespread practice of computing climate Normals commenced in the 1930s, the generally accepted notion of the climate was that underlying long-term averages of climate time series were constant. In many cases, a shorter time period for Normals is being used more and more by industry, particularly the energy industry. Yet many regulatory policies require the use of 30-year normals.

Based on recent engagement with various stakeholders, NCEI is exploring alternate ways of computing normals, such as using time periods other than 30 years in length or applying statistical “hinge” techniques. Through a collaborative open-forum dialogue, we hope to explore opportunities of using alternative climate normals in the energy industry, and how changing climatic conditions can be incorporated in managing business strategy and operations.

This workshop is to bring scientists, researchers, business leaders, and various policy and regulatory decision-makers together to address the implications of using traditional normals, and discuss the options of alternative normals.

Objectives

• Discuss the current use of climate normals in energy load forecasting
• Discuss opportunities and limitations of alternative normals
• Identify regulatory standards, needs from the industry, and opportunity for advancing the standards to enable flexibility
• Continue to build networks between industry, academia, and entrepreneurial solution-enablers interested in catalyzing private sector/industry growing interest in managing their risks, particularly with respect to climate adaptation

Suggested Reading References

*Please cut and paste the links below in a web browser

• NCEI Normals Overview 2012: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/normals/1981-2010/documentation/Arguez-Extended-Normals-AMS2012.pdf
• Link to the BAMS article on “The Definition of the Standard WMO Climate Normal: The Key to Deriving Alternative Climate Normals” http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS2955.1

Confirmed Participants

• Joseph Casola, Senior Associate, ICF International
• Diane Chaumont, Chief Climate Scenarios Group, Quranos
• Jon Davis, Sr Meteorologist, Chesapeake Energy Corporation
• Philip Hanser, Principal, The Brattle Group
• Bob Hinton, Director, Economic Research Division, North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC)
• Dennis Kelter, Manager of Load Forecast – Commonwealth Edison Co
• Shawn Lange, Utility Engineering Specialist III, Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC)
• Kevin Leahy, Managing Director Environmental and Energy Policy, Duke Energy
• Robert Livezey, Retired NOAA/NWS
• Glynis Lough, Battelle
• Cynthia Marple, Director of Rates and Regulatory Affairs, American Gas Association (AGA)
• Melinda Marquis, Renewable Energy Project Manager, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
• Alfred Morrissey Jr., Corporate Economist, National Grid
• Robert Reed, Chairman of NARUC Gas Subcommittee, and Natural Gas Manager, Alabama Public Service Commission
• Paul Stackhouse, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center
• Richard Stevie, Chief Economist, Duke Energy

• Robert Bailey, SCANA
• Steve Bennett, Founder and President, Chief Science and Products Officer, Earth Risk Technologies
• George Briggs, Executive Director, North Carolina Arboretum
• Judy Cooper, Columbia Gas of Kentucky
• James Dobson, UNC Asheville, NEMAC
• Allan Eustis, NIST
• Leah Faulker, Kentucky Public Service Commission
• Stuart Foster, Kentucky Climate Center
• James Fox, UNC Asheville, NEMAC
• Julie Gaddy, Earth Networks
• Shaida Johnston, GST
• David Markham, Computational Physics
• Alan Miller, IFC
• Daryl Newby, Kentucky Public Service Commission
• Calvin Opheim, ERCOT
• John Rogness, Kentucky Public Service Commission
• Wendy Ryan, Colorado Climate Center
• Arthur Small, President and CEO, Venti Risk Management
• Vladimir Stenek, IFC
• Michael Timlin, Midwestern Regional Climate Center
• David Westberg, SSAI, NASA Langley Research Center
• Keith Wheeler, ZedX
• Stephen Wilcox, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NOAA
• Robert Willen, Ameren Services
• Steve Wills, Ameren Services

• Speaker and/or panelist

AGENDA

^* Note: Federal employees must pay on site for all refreshments and meals. Registration fee covers refreshments and meals for non-federal employees.

Speaker Biographies

DR. ANTHONY ARGUEZ
Anthony Arguez is a physical scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI, www.ncdc.noaa.gov) in Asheville, North Carolina. He received a Ph.D. in Meteorology (2005), an M.S. in Meteorology (2002), a B.S. in Meteorology (2000), and a B.S. in Geography/Environmental Studies (2000) from the Florida State University. While in college, Dr. Arguez worked as an undergraduate and graduate research assistant at the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies. His primary research interests are statistical climatology, time series analysis, and climate variability and change. Dr. Arguez was the project manager for NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals, which were released in July 2011. He also leads a project on alternative climate normals, whose goal is to produce climate normal products that are more representative of current climate conditions than the traditional 30-year normals. In addition, Dr. Arguez serves as NCDC's user engagement lead for the energy industry.

DR. JOHN BATES
John J. Bates is Supervisory Meteorologist and Chief of the Remote Sensing Applications Division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) National Centers for Environmental Information. Dr. Bates’ research interests are in the areas of using operational and research satellite data to study the global water and energy cycle and interactions of the ocean and atmosphere. Dr. Bates received a M.S. (1982) and Ph. D. (1986) in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. in Meteorology from Florida State University in 1976. He received a post-doctoral fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA (1986-1988) and then worked at the NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories in Boulder, CO (1988-2002). Dr. Bates is a member of the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union. He is an author/coauthor of 40 refereed publications. He earned the NOAA Administrator’s Award 2004 for outstanding administration and leadership in developing a new division within NCDC to meet the challenges to NOAA in the area of climate applications related to remotely sensed data and, in 1998, an Editors’ Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Geophysical Research Letters. He is currently chair of the American Geophysical Union’s Meetings Committee and member of the governing Council.

DR. OTIS BROWN
Dr. Brown is the Director of NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites – North Carolina and his specialties are satellite oceanography, development of quantitative methods for the processing and use of satellite remotely-sensed observations to study Earth System processes with a focus on ocean color and infrared observations, and the development and application of new approaches to study climate variability and stakeholder engagement. Over time, his research interests have shifted to areas of observable climate change impact including the development of basin scale climatologies for SST and color fields, use of longer-term space-based observations to quantify the impacts of climatic variability, and the engagement of stakeholders. He collaborated with Professor Mary Doyle at the University of Miami to found the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy as a sustainable approach to the training of the next generation of Earth System managers and researchers.

Dr. Brown served as Dean of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science for 14 years, while being at the University for more than 40 years. He received the University of Miami Presidents Medal in honor of his outstanding leadership and distinguished accomplishments in his field of expertise as well as for his contributions to society. Dr. Brown is a tenured Professor of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the University of Miami (on leave) and a Research Professor at NC State University. Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics, with a specialty in underwater optics, from the University of Miami; a Master of Science degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Miami; and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from North Carolina State University.

DR. JOSEPH CASOLA
Dr. Casola is a Senior Associate at ICF International, and has over 10 years of experience in issues related to climate science and policy. He has conducted original scientific research involving climate change, climate variability, hydrology, and adaptation to climate change. He has expertise in translating information about historical and projected climate conditions for use by regional, state, and local resource managers and planners. Dr. Casola has contributed to numerous reports and websites designed to communicate the risks associated with climate variability and climate change for a wide range of technical and general audiences. He received his Ph.D and M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington, Seattle and a B.S. in Chemistry from Duke University.

MS. DIANE CHAUMONT
Diane Chaumont obtained a Master’s degree in Physical Geography from the Université de Montréal in 1993. In the 1990s she collaborated with various government and academic research networks in data analysis and collection. She later joined the Centre for Computation and Application (CERCA) to work on combining hydrological and meteorological models. Since 2003 she has specialized in analyzing observed climate data and developing climatic scenarios at Ouranos. During this time Ms. Chaumont has contributed to climate change impact studies on hydroelectric demand and generation, water management in multi-user contexts, agricultural production and infrastructure adaptation in Québec and Canada. She has been the coordinator of Ouranos’ Climate Scenarios group since 2006.

MR. JON DAVIS
Jon Davis is chief meteorologist for Chesapeake Energy and a member of the risk management team responsible for hedging activities within the firm. Chesapeake Energy is the second largest producer of natural gas in the U.S. and the top driller. The meteorology department is based in Chicago while Chesapeake’s corporate headquarters are in Oklahoma City. He has been in the applied meteorology arena since he graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1985. Prior to joining Chesapeake in 2003, Mr. Davis worked for Citigroup (Smith Barney) and the predecessor companies for 18 years. He is regarded as one of the foremost experts on the relationship between weather/climate and the impacts on commodities.

MS. JENNY DISSEN
Ms. Dissen is the Director of Climate Literacy and Outreach at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites North Carolina. She leads a program of informal and more formal outreach activities across public and private sector to advance climate science and improve understanding of interests and needs on climate impacts on sub-decadal time scales, adaptation strategies, and options for building resilience to climate change. As CICS-NC is also part of NC State University Office of Research, Innovation and Economic Development, she provides catalytic support to advance the uptake of climate data and information on the climate adaptation timescale.

Prior to joining CICS-NC, Ms. Dissen served as the Regional Coordinator in Southeast Asia for the William J. Clinton Foundation in their Clinton Climate Initiative. She also served as an experienced manager at Accenture for nearly ten years in the Resources Industry Group, and was a member of the High Performance Asset Management Team for their North American Utilities Practice. Ms. Dissen earned her M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in Environmental Systems Analysis and B.S. in Environmental Engineering, both from North Carolina State University.

MR. PHIL HANSER
Mr. Hanser assists clients in issues ranging from market structure and market power and associated regulatory questions, to specific operational and strategic issues, such as transmission pricing, resource planning, and retail tariff strategies. He also has expertise in fuels procurement, environmental issues, forecasting, marketing and demand-side management, renewables integration, and other complex management and financial matters.

Over his thirty years in the industry, Mr. Hanser has appeared as an expert witness before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), numerous state public service and siting commissions, arbitration panels, and in federal and state courts. He served six years on the American Statistical Association’s Advisory Committee to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and serves as a referee for both IAEE and IEEE journals.

Prior to joining The Brattle Group, Mr. Hanser held teaching positions at the University of the Pacific, University of California at Davis, and Columbia University, and has served as a guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. He was the manager of the Demand-Side Management Program at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) before joining Brattle. He has published widely in leading industry and economic journals.

MR. ROBERT HINTON
Mr. Hinton is the Director of the Economic Research Division of the Public Staff. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 1980 and a Master of Economics degree from North Carolina State University in 1983. Since joining the Public Staff in May of 1985, he has filed testimony on the long-range electrical forecast in Docket No. E-100, Sub 50. In 1986, 1989 and 1992, he has developed the long-range forecasts of peak demand for electricity in North Carolina. In various fuel proceedings, he has filed testimony on electricity weather normalization in Docket No. E-7, Sub 620, Docket No. E-2, Sub 833, and Docket No. E-7, Sub 989. He has filed testimony on weather normalization of water sales in Docket No. W-274, Sub 160 and Docket No. W-354, Sub 266. He has reviewed numerous peak demand and energy sales forecasts and the expansion plans filed in electric utilities’ annual Integrated Resource Plans (IRP) and filed testimony on the IRPs filed in Docket No. E-100, Sub 114 and Docket No. E-100, Sub 125

DR. THOMAS KARL
Thomas Karl currently serves as director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C., and Chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Karl is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and has recently completely his term as President. He is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and several books as Editor and Contributor. He has received many awards and recognition for his work in services and scientific contributions in climate-related work including: two Presidential Rank Awards, five Gold Medals from the Department of Commerce and two Bronze Medals; the American Meteorological Society's Suomi Award; National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences; the NOAA Administrator's Award, and several others. He has served as Editor of the Journal of Climate (1997-2000) and has been the Convening and Lead Author and Review Editor of all the major IPCC assessments since 1990, which were recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was Co-Chair of the U.S. National Assessments and the recent Global Climate Change Impacts in the U.S. state of knowledge report and a number of other assessments produced by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. He has received a B.S. in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University, a M.S in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin, and a doctorate of humane letters (honoris causa) from North Carolina State University.

MR. DENNIS KELTER
Dennis Kelter is the Manager of Load Forecasting for Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd). ComEd is an electric utility serving approximately 3.8 million customers in the northern quarter of the State of Illinois, which is equivalent to approximately 70% of the state’s population. Dennis’ group is responsible for preparing the energy and peak load forecasts for ComEd. Both monthly and long-term forecasts are provided for use in projecting revenue, capacity planning and procurement decisions. Weather adjustment is also one of the group’s primary functions. Dennis has been Manager of Load Forecasting for almost ten years with a total of 30 years with the Company. Besides load forecasting, he has held positions related to fuel procurement, rate setting and regulatory activities. He has a Master of Science degree in Mineral Economics from Penn State.

DR. KEN KUNKEL
Dr. Kunkel is a senior scientist at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites and is the Science Lead for the National Climate Assessments. He also serves as a research professor at the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at NC State University.

Dr. Kunkel’s recent research has focused on climate variability and change, particularly related to extreme events, such as heavy precipitation, heat waves, cold waves, and winter storms. A particular focus has been the historical variations in the frequency and intensity of such extreme events extending from the late 19th Century to the present. He has been a lead author on two recent reports of the U.S. Climate Change Program: Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate and Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations.

Dr. Kunkel has also engaged in the diagnostic analysis of both regional and global climate model output. This has focused on the regional fidelity of model simulations of the climate of the U.S., including such features as the North American monsoon and the lack of 20th Century warming in the central U.S. He has developed a number of applications of climate data, including a temperature-based model that anticipates the risk of West Nile Virus infections and a soil moisture model for agricultural usage in the Midwest.

Dr. Kunkel’s academic background includes a B.S. in Physics, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Meteorology from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

MR. SHAWN LANGE
Shawn Lange is an engineer with the Missouri Public Service Commission Staff. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla, now Missouri University of Science and Technology. Shawn has been active in weather normalization and the determination of normal weather variables for over 7 years. In these areas, he has developed electric customer class weather response functions, weather normalized electric class customer usage and has provided expert testimony in contested rate cases before the Missouri Public Service Commission. He is currently involved in modeling fuel expenses and construction audits involving large capital projects.

DR. ROBERT LIVEZEY
Dr. Livezey retired from the NWS in 2008 as Chief of Climate Services after a 37-year career. In his last position he led the development and implementation of NOAA/NWS operational climate services at field offices nationwide. Since then he has been a self-employed consultant, working especially with natural gas companies to advocate the use of alternative normals in rate cases (7 in 6 states). He is expert in climate statistics and estimating and tracking weather/climate normals and post-war climate change over North America, as well as on short-term North American climate variations and their prediction. He has nearly 60 peer-refereed publications and book chapters which have been cited in the refereed literature a total of over 2000 times. He is the recipient of a Commerce Department Gold Medal and 3 Bronze Medals as well as 2 NOAA Administrator’s Awards for his research and leadership. Dr. Livezey is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), a recipient of an AMS Editor’s Award, a founding Editor of the Society’s prestigious Journal of Climate, currently a member of the AMS Publications Commission, and twice chaired the AMS Committee on Probability and Statistics. Dr. Livezey spent most of his career at CPC/CAC as Senior Scientist and Lead Seasonal Forecaster prior to assuming his last federal position in 1999. He also briefly held faculty positions (Penn State and Missouri) and served as Chief of the Experimental Climate Forecast Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He holds BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University.

DR. GLYNIS LOUGH
Dr. Lough is an environmental research scientist with Battelle in Arlington, VA, who specializes in air quality, climate change, clean energy, and environmental policy and planning. Her research focuses on translation of research products – including remote sensing products and model output – to create useful decision support tools. She recently worked with energy utilities to incorporate high-resolution weather forecasts initialized with NASA Earth observation data into daily energy load forecasting, and assessed needs for long-term planning related to climate change. Dr. Lough holds a Ph.D in Environmental Chemistry and Technology from the University of Wisconsin, and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

MS. CYNTHIA MARPLE
Cynthia Marple is Director of Rates and Regulatory Affairs at the American Gas Association (AGA), an energy association that represents 200 local energy companies that deliver natural gas throughout the United States and Canada. She is responsible for the development of association policy on federal and state regulation of natural gas utilities, outreach to state regulators, and the direction of AGA’s rates programs. Previously at AGA, Cynthia worked in financial affairs, where she oversaw programs in financial forecasting, risk management, and mutual funds.

Ms. Marple represents AGA in numerous legislative and regulatory forums and is a frequent writer and speaker on regulatory and financial issues affecting the natural gas industry. Recently she has advocated for the increased use of innovative rate and cost tracking mechanisms and the accelerated recovery of replacement infrastructure costs.

Before joining AGA in 1986, Ms. Marple worked as a medical chemist. She has an MBA in finance from George Mason University and a BS in Medical Technology from Michigan State University.

DR. MELINDA MARQUIS
Melinda Marquis is the Lead for Renewable Energy Research in NOAA and the Renewable Energy Program Manager at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). She is Co-Chair of the AMS Renewable Energy Subcommittee, and Chair of the AMS Board on Enterprise Economic Development. She joined NOAA ESRL in 2007, after serving as Deputy Director for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I. Dr. Marquis was the leader of two NASA Earth-satellite mission projects at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado. Dr. Marquis earned her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Colorado in 1995.

DR. ALFRED P. MORRISSEY, JR.
Al Morrissey is Corporate Economist in the Analytics, Modeling and Forecasting Department at National Grid and has 28 years experience in load forecasting and analysis. He began his career at American Electric Power (AEP) in Columbus, OH where he developed electric energy and demand forecasts for several of AEP’s largest operating companies. For the last 23 years, he has worked at legacy National Grid companies and developed energy sales, revenue and peak demand forecasts for all of National Grid’s current electric distribution companies. He became involved in gas load forecasting in 2008, following National Grid’s merger with Keyspan Gas. He is a member of the ISO-NE Load Forecasting Committee (past Chair), the NYISO Load Forecasting Task Force, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Load Forecasting Group, the EEI Economic Policy Advisory Group and the New England Economic Partnership (past Board Member). He has held adjunct faculty positions at the Ohio State University and Franklin University in Columbus, OH. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Notre Dame and a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

ROBERT REED
Bob Reed has been employed by the Alabama Public Service Commission for 33 years, where he is Natural Gas Manager, responsible for the regulation of all investor-owned gas utility, transportation, and storage companies in Alabama. Bob is also Chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Staff Subcommittee on Gas. He led the team that produced the joint NARUC – National Regulatory Research Institute “Natural Gas Information Toolkit” in September 2008.

He attended Auburn University, where he earned Bachelor of Science in Education and Master of Business Administration degrees. He co-authored, with Bill Thompson III, Editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, a book, “Alabama Bird Watching, A Year-round Guide.”

He served a total of 30 years in military service, both active and reserve, and retired as a colonel, having earned the Legion of Merit. He serves on numerous boards and committees, including Vice Chair of the Alabama Liquefied Petroleum Gas Board and Secretary of the United Methodist Board of Ordained Ministry.

DR. PAUL W. STACKHOUSE, JR.
Dr. Stackhouse received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University in 1995 and is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. At NASA Langley Research Center, he is lead scientist of the NASA/Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project, a project responsible to use satellite and other analysis to estimate the long-term surface radiation budget and components. He is a science team member of the Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) project and co-leads the FLASHFlux (Fast Longwave and Shortwave radiative Fluxes) working group that produces near-real estimates of top-of-atmosphere and surface radiation data products from CERES. Using the long-term and near-real time data products from the science projects above, Dr. Stackhouse leads several NASA-funded Applied Science projects that tailor, these data products along with meteorological input, for the energy-related and agricultural industries. These applied science projects have led to the development of data sets and web interface tools for the solar energy and agricultural industries.

DR. RICHARD STEVIE
Beginning June 2012, Dr. Richard Stevie will be joining Integral Analytics as Vice President, Forecasting. Currently, Dr. Stevie is Chief Economist for Duke Energy with over thirty years experience in the utility industry. During his tenure with Duke Energy, Dr. Stevie managed several key analytical functions including economic forecasts, projections of energy sales and peak demands, customer research on energy usage, market research, energy efficiency cost-effectiveness, and measurement and verification of energy efficiency measure impacts. He has provided expert testimony on numerous utility economic issues including projections of energy sales and peak demands, market pricing for energy, energy efficiency regulatory recovery mechanisms, cost of capital, rate design, weather normalization of energy sales, and assessment of economic conditions. Past positions include General Manager of Market Analytics for Cinergy Corp., Senior Economist for the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company, Director of Economic Research for the Public Staff of the North Carolina Utilities Commission, and Economist for the USEPA. Dr. Stevie received his undergraduate degree in economics from Thomas More College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Cincinnati.

DR. RUSSELL S. VOSE
Dr. Russell S. Vose is the chief of the Product Development Branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Over the past two decades his research has primarily focused on understanding climate change and integrating climate observations, particularly for use in international climate assessments and operational climate monitoring.

Dr. Vose was a contributing author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report, a lead author on Climate Change Synthesis Product (CCSP) 1.1, and a contributing author on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. He has coauthored nearly two dozen proposals jointly garnering more than $4 million in funding, with NOAA and DOE being his primary sponsors. He has over 40 publications in refereed venues, including prominent journals such as Nature and the Journal of Climate, and his research has been cited over 1000 times in the refereed literature. In addition, he has received the Department of Commerce Gold and Bronze Medal team awards for his contributions to CCSP 1.1 and the development of the Climate Reference Network, respectively.

Dr. Vose has been a supervisory physical scientist at the National Centers for Environmental Information since 2000. Previously he served as an academic professional at Arizona State University from 1995-2000, where he taught undergraduate and graduate classes in Geographic Information Analysis, Quantitative Methods, and Computer Programming. Dr. Vose also held the position of research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1990-1995. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University in 2004, his Master’s degree from the University of Delaware in 1993, and his Bachelor’s degree from The Pennsylvania State University in 1987.