Join the International Arctic Research Center for the first IARC Salon of 2023. January’s panelists James Renwick, Richard Levy and Olaf Morgenstern will discuss climate change from the New Zealand perspective.  

James Renwick is a climate scientist who has been involved with meteorological and climate research for four decades. Renwick is a professor of physical geography at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and a board member of the Climate Change Commission that advises the New Zealand government on climate resilience and emissions reduction. Among other activities, he also was a lead author and coordinating lead author on three Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and in 2018, was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science Communication.

Richard Levy is a glacial stratigrapher and paleoclimatologist whose research has primarily focused on the Earth’s climate system in the mid to high southern latitudes. He is a principal scientist at New Zealand’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS Science), and currently leads major environmental research programs at GNS Science and at the Antarctic Research Center at VUW, one of which is a program concerned with sea level rise impacts on New Zealand. In 2022, he won the BLAKE Leader Award for delivering high impact results and contributing to a more sustainable future for New Zealand.

Olaf Morgenstern is a principal scientist of atmosphere and climate at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). He currently leads the NIWA Climate Variability and Change Program, which predicts climate globally and for the New Zealand region. He was a lead author of the 6th IPCC Assessment Report, represents NIWA in the Unified Model Global Model Configuration Group, and, in line with his expertise in chemistry-climate modeling, has been involved in the past three WMO Scientific Assessments of Ozone Depletion.

Watch a recording of the meeting [passcode: N=q*TA18]

This semester’s IARC salon graduate student coordinators are PhD students Michael Lundberg and Addie Norgaard. Michael studies Arctic atmospheric and physical oceanographic processes. Addie is in oceanography studying inorganic carbon dynamics in the Gulf of Alaska.