Don Wuebbles

University of Illinois

Aviation Effects on Climate: The State of the Science

 

Abstract

Biography

Donald (Don) J. Wuebbles is the Director of the School of Earth, Society, and Environment at the University of Illinois. He is also a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences as well as in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Wuebbles was Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences from 1994 until 2006 before accepting the new position. He earned his B.S. (1970) and M.S. (1972) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois. He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of California at Davis in 1983. He is the author of over 380 scientific articles, most of which relate to atmospheric chemistry and global climate change as affected by both human activities and natural phenomena. His research emphasizes the development and use of mathematical models of the atmosphere to study the chemical and physical processes that determine atmospheric structure, aimed primarily towards improving our understanding of the impacts that man-made and natural trace gases may be having on the Earth’s climate and on tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry. He has been a lead author on a number of national and international assessments related to these issues. Dr. Wuebbles was elected a member of the International Ozone Commission in 2000, and in 2005 received the Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Faculty Fellow in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He, along with many others, shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Dr. Wuebbles also has extensive experience in the study of the effects of aviation on the environment. His expertise and research in the effects of aviation go back to the early 1970s when he was a leader in modeling the potential effects on stratospheric of the then proposed supersonic transport aircraft. Along with publishing many papers and reports on the effects of aviation, he has also been a lead author on several assessments of the effects of current and projected subsonic and supersonic aircraft on the global environment, including lead author on several different chapters of the IPCC special assessment of environmental impacts of aviation in 1999. In 2006, he chaired a major international workshop on the effects of aviation on climate for the FAA and NASA. A journal paper on the findings of the workshop was published in EOS in 2007. He also co-led the climate panel for a major meeting for ICAO on environmental impacts of aviation in October 2007.  He is a member of the FAA’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee of their Research Engineering and Development Advisory Committee.