Gabriele Clarissa Hegerl FRS FRSE[3] (born 9 January 1962)[4] is a German climatologist.[4] She is a professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences.[5] Prior to 2007 she held research positions at Texas A&M University and at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, during which time she was a co-ordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth and Fifth[6] Assessment Report.[7][8]

Gabriele Hegerl
Hegerl in 2018
Born
Gabriele Clarissa Hegerl

(1962-01-09) 9 January 1962 (age 62)
Munich, Germany
Alma materLudwig Maximilian University of Munich[2]
Spouse
Thomas Crowley
(died)
Children2
Scientific career
FieldsClimate science[1]
Institutions
ThesisNumerische Lösung der kompressiblen zweidimensionalen Navier-Stokes-Gleichungen in einem zeitabhängigen Gebiet mit Hilfe energievermindernder Randbedingungen (1991)
Websitewww.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/ghegerl

Early life and education

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Hegerl was born on 9 January 1962 in Munich, Germany.[4] She gained undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, finishing with a PhD in 1991,[4][2] with a thesis using a numerical solution of the Navier–Stokes equations using boundary conditions.[2]

Research and career

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Hegerl's research[9] [10][11] in the natural variability of climate and changes in climate due to natural and anthropogenic changes in radiative forcing (such as greenhouse warming, climate effects of volcanic eruptions and changes in solar radiation). Hegerl has also led well-known research on the attribution of modern climate change to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission.

She led a 2006 study examining climate sensitivity, then commonly accepted as 1.5 to 4.5K in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, to review observational studies suggesting that climate sensitivity could be as much as 7.7K or even exceed 9K. By using large-ensemble energy balance modelling to simulate temperature responses to historic changes in the radiative forcing effect of solar changes, volcanic eruptions and greenhouse gases, and comparing this to climate reconstructions, they produced an independent estimate that climate sensitivity was probably within the range of 1.5 to 6.2K.[10] In an interview with The Washington Times, Hegerl said "Our reconstruction supports a lot of variability in the past".[12]

She is a co-ordinating lead author on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report for Working Group I in the chapter on "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change".[13] Her 2006 reconstruction was cited in the chapter on "Paleoclimate" in support of the conclusion that the 20th century was likely to have been the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere for at least 1,300 years.[14]

She was a member of a team which reviewed recent reconstructions of the temperature record of the past 1000 years, and in 2007 published their own reconstruction from proxies, finding that the maximum pre-industrial temperature in 1,000 years had been significantly exceeded by recent instrumental temperatures.[11]

Publications

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Hegerl's publications[1][15] include:

  • "Annular Modes in the Extratropical Circulation. Part II: Trends",[16]
  • "Simulation of the influence of solar radiation variations on the global climate with an ocean-atmosphere general circulation", by U Cubasch, R Voss, GC Hegerl, J Waszkewitz, T. J. Crowley – Climate Dynamics, 1997
  • "Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change", by G. C. Hegerl, K. Hasselmann, U. Cubasch, J. F. B. Mitchell, E. Roeckner, R. Voss and J. Waszkewitz
  • "Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method",[17]
  • "Detection of climate change and attribution of causes", by JFB Mitchell, DJ Karoly, GC Hegerl, FW Zwiers, MR … – Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, 2001
  • "The Effect of Local Sea Surface Temperatures on Atmospheric Circulation over the Tropical Atlantic"[18]
  • "On multi-fingerprint detection and attribution of greenhouse gas- and aerosol forced climate change"[19]

Honours and awards

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In 2013, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE)[20] and in 2017 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).[3] In 2018 she was made an honorary Doctor of Science by Leeds University.[21] In 2016, Professor Hegerl won the Hans Sigrist Prize "for her groundbreaking scientific work in this year’s prize field, 'The Human Fingerprint on the Earth System'"[22] In 2018 she became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.[23]

Personal life

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Hegerl was married to Thomas Crowley and was later widowed. She has two sons, born in 2000 and 2003.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b Gabriele Hegerl publications indexed by Google Scholar  
  2. ^ a b c Hegerl, Gabriele Clarissa (1991). Numerische Lösung der kompressiblen zweidimensionalen Navier-Stokes-Gleichungen in einem zeitabhängigen Gebiet mit Hilfe energievermindernder Randbedingungen. tib.eu (PhD thesis). University of Munich. OCLC 636829273.
  3. ^ a b Anon (2017). "Professor Gabriele Hegerl FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 23 May 2017. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)

  4. ^ a b c d e "Curriculum vitae" (PDF). October 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 August 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  5. ^ People | School of GeoSciences archived 28 June 2012
  6. ^ "Climate change report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2014.
  7. ^ IPCC AR4
  8. ^ "Interview of Hegerl]" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 August 2011. by Hans von Storch, March 2011
  9. ^ Hegerl, G. (1998), "The past as guide to the future" (PDF), Nature, 392 (6678): 758–759, Bibcode:1998Natur.392..758H, doi:10.1038/33799, S2CID 205002951
  10. ^ a b Hegerl, Gabriele C.; Crowley, Thomas J.; Hyde, William T.; Frame, David J. (2006), "Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries", Nature, 440 (7087): 1029–1032, Bibcode:2006Natur.440.1029H, doi:10.1038/nature04679, PMID 16625192, S2CID 4387059
  11. ^ a b Juckes, M. N.; Allen, M. R.; Briffa, K. R.; Esper, J.; Hegerl, G. C.; Moberg, Anders; Osborn, T. J.; Weber, S. L. (2007), "Millennial temperature reconstruction intercomparison and evaluation" (PDF), Climate of the Past, 3 (4): 591, Bibcode:2007CliPa...3..591J, doi:10.5194/cp-3-591-2007
  12. ^ Scientists cool outlook on global warming, The Washington Times – 21 April 2006
  13. ^ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change Archived 1 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ IPCC AR4 "Section 6.6: The Last 2,000 Years". Archived from the original on 28 March 2015.
  15. ^ Gabriele Hegerl publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  16. ^ Thompson, David W. J.; Wallace, John M.; Hegerl, Gabriele C. (2000). "Annular Modes in the Extratropical Circulation. Part II: Trends". Journal of Climate. 13 (5): 1018–1036. Bibcode:2000JCli...13.1018T. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<1018:AMITEC>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0894-8755.
  17. ^ Hegerl, Gabriele C.; von Storch, Hans; Hasselmann, Klaus; Santer, Benjamin D.; Cubasch, Ulrich; Jones, Philip D. (1996). "Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method". Journal of Climate. 9 (10): 2281–2306. Bibcode:1996JCli....9.2281H. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1996)009<2281:DGGICC>2.0.CO;2. hdl:21.11116/0000-0001-C0D5-5. ISSN 0894-8755.
  18. ^ Chang, Ping; Saravanan, R.; Ji, Link; Hegerl, G. C. (2000). "The Effect of Local Sea Surface Temperatures on Atmospheric Circulation over the Tropical Atlantic Sector". Journal of Climate. 13 (13): 2195–2216. Bibcode:2000JCli...13.2195C. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<2195:TEOLSS>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0894-8755.
  19. ^ Hegerl, G. C.; Hasselmann, K.; Cubasch, U.; Mitchell, J. F. B.; Roeckner, E.; Voss, R.; Waszkewitz, J. (1997). "Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change". Climate Dynamics. 13 (9): 613–634. Bibcode:1997ClDy...13..613H. doi:10.1007/s003820050186. hdl:21.11116/0000-0003-2DE4-A. ISSN 0930-7575. S2CID 54682278.  
  20. ^ "Professor Gabriele Clarissa Hegerl FRSE, FRS - The Royal Society of Edinburgh". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  21. ^ "Gabriele Hegerl". University of Leeds. July 2018. Archived from the original on 21 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  22. ^ "Prof. Dr. Gabriele Hegerl, University of Edinburgh". The Hans Sigrist Foundation. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  23. ^ "Gabriele Hegerl". German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Retrieved 26 May 2021.