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Global Climate Change Impacts in the Western United States
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Frank Niepold
Frank Niepold is currently a Climate Education Fellow at NOAA's Climate Program
Office in Silver Spring Maryland and a GLOBE Program Master Trainer. At NOAA, he
develops and implements NOAA's Climate goal education and outreach efforts that
specifically relate to NOAA's Environmental Literacy cross cutting priority. As
a GLOBE Trainer, he trains teachers in intensive field and laboratory settings throughout
the United States and Internationally, most recently in Phuket Thailand. Mr. Niepold
has spent seven years developing remote sensing educational materials for the Landsat
Educational Outreach team. He has spent 10 years working as a Middle/High School
Earth Systems Science Teacher. As a teacher, he developed an international school
collaboration series of projects using the scientist/teacher/student partnership
model to monitor climate change. Projects include: Coral reef monitoring in the
Caribbean, Red, and Arabian Seas; Global monitoring and validation of Aerosols;
Glacial retreat among others.
His collaboration on a paper about International GLOBE Program collaborations, Scientist-Teacher-Student
Partnerships For Aerosol Optical Thickness Measurements In Support Of Ground Validation
Programs For Remote Sensing Spacecraft, was selected by International Astronautical
Federation for their 53th International Astronautical Congress. Mr. Niepold and
four of his student's paper, Assessing Satellite-Based Aerosol Retrievals And Ground
Truth Validation For Terra's MODIS Sensor Over Urban Areas Using The Globe Program's
Handheld Sun Photometers, was one of the ten projects selected to be presented at
the 2003 Global Learning Exhibition, by the GLOBE program in Sibenck, Croatia. This
work was highlighted in several articles, one was featured on a NASA news web site,
The Globe Program: Science in the Sunshine.
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/5-8/features/F_Globe_Program_Sunshine.html
Mr. Niepold is happily married with three boys and resides in Olney, MD, USA. He
received his MSEd in Earth Space Science Education (2006) from John's Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD with areas of concentration in Earth Observing Systems, Scientist/Teacher/Student
Collaboration and Earth Systems science education focused on climate. He earned
a BA in Human Ecology (1994) from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME
and B.F.A. in Photography and Video (1989) from Tyler School of Art, Temple University,
Philadelphia, PA. An interview of Frank Niepold is available at the NASA Laboratory
for Terrestrial Physics Education and Outreach Web Site:
http://ltp-education.gsfc.nasa.gov/niepold1.html
Tim Owen
Tim Owen is Operations Officer for the Climate Services Division at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center (NOAA/NCDC).
Since starting there as a student in 1990, he has worked on a variety of projects,
including climate data validation, urban heat-island research, climate normals generation,
climate applications using GIS, and the start of drought.gov - the web portal of
the National Integrated Drought Information System. He holds graduate degrees from
Penn State (M.S., 1995) and UNC Chapel Hill (M.R.P., 2000), where he respectively
conducted research on satellite studies of urban regions and environmental planning
for park viewsheds. In recent years, he has served as NCDC's National Partnership
Liaison and Executive Officer. He has published over a dozen peer-reviewed articles,
and has provided input to both the 2007 IPCC and 2009 Climate Change Impacts reports.
Mr. Owen is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences
at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Katharine Hayhoe
Katharine Hayhoe is a highly-respected expert on climate change, one of the most
pressing issues facing the planet today. An expert reviewer for the Nobel Peace
Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, her life’s work has been
dedicated to discovering and communicating the realities of a changing climate to
those who will be affected most by it.
As a professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University, Katharine
develops new ways to quantify the potential impacts of human activities at the regional
scale. As founder and CEO of ATMOS Research, she also bridges the gap between scientists
and stakeholders to provide relevant, state-of-the-art information on how climate
change will affect our lives to a broad range of non-profit, industry and government
clients.
Katharine developed the climate projections for and served as a lead author on the
federal report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” a report that
provides the most up-to-date assessment of how climate change is already affecting,
and will continue to impact, our public health, water resources, energy, agriculture
and the natural environment. In addition to this report, she has led climate impact
assessments for a number of cities and regions, from Chicago to California. Most
recently, she teamed up with Andrew Farley, noted author, professor and lead teaching
pastor of Ecclesia, to write “A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based
Decisions," a book that untangles the complex science and tackles many long-held
misconceptions about global warming.
Peggy Steffen
Peg Steffen is the education coordinator for the Communications and Education Division
of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. She started federal service as an Albert Einstein
Distinguished Educator Fellow in the Education Division of NASA in 2000. While at
NASA she was an education program manager at NASA Headquarters and started the NASA
Explorer Schools program. In 2006 she joined NOAA’s National Ocean Service where
she leads a development team that provides web-based products, professional development
and educational games.
Peg Steffen holds a BS degree in Zoology from Iowa State University and a Master
of Science in Curriculum and Instruction from Drake University. She holds a certificate
from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in Adolescent and Young
Adult Science. Her classroom teaching experiences span 25 years in grades 8-12 in
biology, physics, and astronomy/geology. She served as adjunct college professor
at Buena Vista University for 8 years teaching zoology and geology to pre-service
teachers. Peg has provided teacher professional development workshops for over 30
years to teachers in the United States, Sweden, Mexico, and Scotland.
Dr. C. Mark Eakin
A coral reef specialist,
with a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Miami, Dr. Eakin
is Coordinator of the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) program, an effort focused on
the monitoring of coral reef ecosystems through satellite, in situ, and paleoenvironmental
observations. In particular, CRW uses NOAA satellite data to monitor threats to
coral reefs such as coral bleaching and ocean acidification. NOAA-CRW provides the
only source of global satellite-based monitoring, alerts, and warnings of upcoming
coral mass bleaching events.
Dr. Eakin has worked for NOAA since 1991. From 2000-2005, Dr. Eakin directed NOAA
Paleoclimatology, and was Director of the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
in Boulder, CO. Prior to that, he was a program manager for the NOAA Office of Global
Programs in Silver Spring, MD, funding research to improve our understanding of
past climate variability, climate prediction, and impacts of climate variability
and change on the marine environment.
Dr. Eakin has published on various topics in coral reef ecology, especially the
impact of climate change and other disturbance on coral reefs. This includes El
Niño impacts on eastern Pacific coral reefs in coral reef ecology and carbonate
budgets, thermal stress and coral bleaching, ocean acidification, oil spills, coral
paleoclimatology, and the behavior of marine organisms. He co-chairs the US Coral
Reef Task Force’s Climate Change Working Group and the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation
Program Climate Change Advisory Panel. He is a Councillor for the International
Society for Reef Studies and member and past chair of the Scientific and Technical
Advisory Committee of the GCRMN. He was helped develop the International and U.S.
Coral Reef Initiatives and the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN). In
2004, Dr. Eakin co-chaired a 7 part series of symposia on “Coral Reefs and Global
Change” at the 10th International Coral Reef Symposium in Okinawa, is coordinating
analysis of data from the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event. In 2007 he testified
before the US House of Representatives at a hearing entitled “Wildlife and Oceans
in a Changing Climate” and has participated in several Congressional briefings.
In 1999 and 2009 he was awarded the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for his
work on climate variability and climate data.
Steven Ackerman
Steven Ackerman is a professor in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences department at the UW-Madison and director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS). Dr. Ackerman conducts research on the interactions between the Earth’s radiation balance and climate variables such as clouds, aerosols and water vapor. He has received several teaching awards, including the AMS 2009 Teaching Excellence Award. He co-authored a meteorology text entitled "Meteorology: Understanding the Atmosphere" (Ackerman & Knox, 2002) and is a regular guest on a Wisconsin Public Radio call-in show called "Conversations with the Weather Guys.” Dr. Ackerman has authored and incorporated interactive on-line software into his teaching for both formal and informal education purposes for over a decade. http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/wxwise/ack.html
Margaret Mooney
Margaret Mooney is an Earth Science Outreach Specialist and former National Weather Service meteorologist. She is also a certified GLOBE trainer and currently serves as Education Chair for the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP). Along with running student and teacher workshops at CIMSS, she manages the following on-line courses: Satellite Applications in the Geosciences (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/sage/) and Global and Regional Climate Change. (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/climatechange/).
For more information contact webseminars@nsta.org
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Underwritten in part by: NOAA
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