Scientific Steering Group

SSG Terms Of Reference - The Current Members

_{Figure 1 Participants of SSG19, La Paz, Mexico}

The Scientific Steering Group (SSG) is a select group of scientists that oversees the implementation of CLIVAR science and reports progress to the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). The members of the SSG are all leaders in their respective fields, which are relevant to CLIVAR science. The scientific expertise of the SSG covers all CLIVAR research areas. Membership of the SSG is rotated; initial terms of service are for two years. However, extension beyond this timeframe is possible. The CLIVAR SSG meets annually and includes members of the SSG and representatives of each of the CLIVAR panels (typically panel chairs).

Click here for more information about CLIVAR SSG activities and meetings.

SSG Terms of Reference

1. Formulate the CLIVAR research programme on climate variability and predictability, based on coupled ocean-atmosphere models, guided by the analysis of observations including paleoclimatic reconstructions, as required to understand the phenomena and predict climate variations.
2. Organise an observing programme that would fulfil the data requirements of CLIVAR, taking into account the development of the operational Global Climate and Global Ocean Observing Systems and possible contributions from national research projects.
3. Provide scientific guidance for the implementation of CLIVAR, using advice of experts and expert groups as necessary.
4. Ensure the exchange and analysis of CLIVAR data and the dissemination of scientific results.
5. Establish scientific liaison with relevant organisations and existing programmes, as appropriate.
6. Advise the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme of progress achieved in the implementation of CLIVAR and scientific advances in the understanding of climate variability and predictability.

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The Current Members

Dr. Lisa Goddard (Co-chair 2015)
Earth Institute at Columbia, USA
Lisa is a co-Chair of the SSG. She received her PhD in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences from Princeton University in 1995. She spent five years at Scripps Institute of Oceanography and in 2000 moved to the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, New York. She became its Director in 2012, From 2010 to present she has been Chair of the US CLIVAR Scientific Steering Committee. Her interests span interannual to decadal predictability, water resources in the Caribbean, and the climate of southeastern South America.

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Professor Martin Visbeck (Co-chair 2014)
IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany
Martin is a co-chair of the SSG. He received is PhD in physical oceanography from  Institut für Meereskunde, Kiel. In 1994 he took a post doctoral position at MIT before proceeding into positions at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University. Martin remained in America until 2004, when he returned to Germany, to take up a Professorship position at Leibniz-Institute for Marine Science, Kiel, where he is now the deputy director. Some of Martins many research interests include the role of the ocean in interannual to centennial climate variability and variability of regional ocean circulation.

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Dr. Annalisa Bracco (2015)
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atlanta, USA
Annalisa received her PhD in Geophysics and Oceanography from the University of Genoa in 2000. From 2000 – 2002 she worked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a postdoctoral scholar before moving to the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste for 3 years. In 2005 she returned to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute for a year to work as an assistant scientist in a tenure track position before taking up her current position in 2006 as Assistant Professor in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Her current interests include geostrophic turbulence and vertical mixing in the ocean, tropical climate dynamics and marine ecosystem dynamics at the ocean mesoscale.

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Dr. Ken Drinkwater (2014)
Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway
Ken Drinkwater has been involved in research on physical oceanography and climate variability and their effects on the marine ecosystem including fish and fisheries for over 35 years. He joined the Institute of Marine Research and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen Norway, in 2003, where he has continued his work on ocean climate and its marine impacts.  He is a former chair of the ICES/GLOBEC Cod and Climate Change (CCC) Program is presently co-chair of the Ecosystems Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) Program under IMBER. He was co-author of the the Marine System chapter in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) to assess possible consequences of climate change on the Arctic and is presently a review editor for the Ocean Systems chapter within Working Group II of the IPCC.

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Dr. Sergey Gulev (2014)
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
Sergey Gulev is the head of the Air-Sea Interaction and Climate Lab at the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (SIO), Russian Academy of Sciences, and a Professor in Meteorology and Oceanography at the Moscow State University (MSU). Sergey graduated from MSU in 1980 and got his PhD from State Oceanographic Institute in 1985 and his DSci degree from SIO in 1996. In 1992/93 he was a Humboldt Fellow at the Institute fuer Meereskunde in Kiel. He developed global and regional estimates of surface air-sea fluxes, climatologies of ocean wind waves and cyclone activity as well as ocean GCM – based diagnostics of the North Atlantic variability. He is the author of several books and many articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Sergey teaches at graduate and postgraduate levels at MSU and at the Universities of Kiel and Grenoble.

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Dr. Ed Hawkins (2015)
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK
Ed currently works as a climate scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) Climate group at the University of Reading, UK and is principal investigator the Arctic predictability project, APPOSITE. He is also part of the UK NERC RAPID-WATCH RAPIT programme and EQUIP project. His current research interests include decadal variability and predictability of climate and quantification of the uncertainty in climate predictions and impacts. Ed is also involved with public, media and outreach projects, including a blog, which promotes collaboration and understanding of the climate science.

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Dr. Valerie Masson-Delmotte (2013)
Atomic Energy Commission and Energy Alternatives, France
Valerie gained her PhD thesis in ‘Modelling mid-Holocene climate using atmospheric general circulation models, impact of parameterisations’. In 1996 she worked as a scientist at  Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), before becoming head of the  GLACCIOS research group in 1998. Since 2008 she has worked at CEA as a senior scientist in the Laboratoire des Science du Climar et de l’Environnement, as head of the climate dynamics and archives research team. Her research activities include climate variability and climate change and climate archives from tree rings and polar ice cores.

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Dr. Steve Rintoul (2013)
CSIRO, Australia
Steve graduated with Honours in Physics from Harvard College, USA, and obtained his Doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, USA. He joined CSIRO in 1990 where he has been ever since.  He has participated in 14 research voyages, 11 as Chief Scientist, on major expeditions to the Southern, Indian and Pacific Oceans.  His current interests include; ocean currents and how they affect Earth's climate; the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current; how ocean currents influence sea ice, biogeochemical cycles, and the distribution of biological productivity.

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Dr. Pedro MS Monteiro (2015)
CSIR, South Africa
Currently based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa, Pedro works as a principal oceanographer. His current activities and research interests include, understanding the coupled earth climate system in the Southern Ocean; understanding and modelling the incidence and variability of oxygen in shelf and oceanic systems and; using models and data to understand the biophysical processes starting and sustaining phytoplankton production and how they influence surface ocean carbon variability. Pedro also initiated and currently heads the Southern Ocean Carbon Climate Observatory Programme.

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Dr. Sigfried Schubert (2014)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre
Dr. Siegfried D. Schubert received his Ph. D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. His research interests include climate variability and predictability, droughts, hydrological cycle, extreme events, and reanalysis. Dr. Schubert has authored or co-authored 60 papers in peer reviewed journals. He is currently the head of the Sub-Seasonal-to-Decadal group at the Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre. He organised and directed NASA’s first reanalysis projects.

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Dr. Lixin Wu (2015)
Ocean University of China, China
Lixin received his PhD from Beijing University in China. He did a postdoc at Rutgers University and in 1995 he moved to the Centre for Climatic Research of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he stayed until 2005. In that year, he became Director of the Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China. His main interests are on modelling the global climate system, large-scale ocean-atmosphere interaction, and decadal climate variability. Until last year, he was a member of the CLIVAR Pacific Panel.

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