Michael MacCracken Chosen to Lead Climate Institute's Climate Science and Impacts Program
The Climate Institute has announced that Dr. Michael MacCracken, one of the world's highly regarded atmospheric scientists, has been selected to head the Institute's climate science and 
impacts programs. Dr. MacCracken, who received a B.S. degree in Engineering from Princeton University in 1964 and a Ph.D. degree in Applied Science from the University of California Davis/Livermore in 1968, was recently elected as President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS). He will serve as IAMAS President until 2007.
Prior to joining the Climate Institute as Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Dr. MacCracken had been a scientist with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for 34 years. From 1993-2002 MacCracken was on assignment from LLNL to serve as senior global change scientist with the interagency Office of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) in Washington D.C., also serving as its first executive director from 1993-1997. From 1997-2001, he served as executive director of the USGCRP's National Assessment Coordination Office, which coordinated the efforts of 20 regional assessment teams, 5 sectoral teams, and the National Assessment Synthesis Team which prepared the national level impact assessment reports that were forwarded to the President and on to the Congress. During this period with the Office of the USGCRP, Dr. MacCracken also coordinated the official U.S. Government reviews of several of the assessment reports prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and he was a co-author/contributing author for various chapters in the IPCC assessment reports.
In the quarter century before he assumed the leadership of the Office of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and then of the USGCRP National Assessment Coordination Office Dr. MacCracken led research projects on a wide range of climate and air quality issues. These included the study of the potential climatic impacts of greenhouse gases, volcanic aerosols, land-cover change, and of nuclear war and of factors affecting air quality. Here his research concerned such issues as photochemical air pollution in the San Francisco Bay area and sulfate air pollution in the Northeastern United States. His Ph.D. dissertation used a two- dimensional climate model to evaluate the plausibility of several hypotheses of the causes of ice ages.
In his new position at the Climate Institute Dr. MacCracken will chair a Scientific Steering Committee guiding the Climate Institute's effort to provide the most comprehensive, accurate and useful information on climate change impacts and air quality available on the Internet at the Institute's web site. This effort is being undertaken in collaboration with a Mexico City based partner, Sistema Integral Monitoreo Ambiental (SIMA) which is headed by Luis Roberto Acosta. Working with both Dr. MacCracken and Senor Acosta on this initiative will be Institute President John Topping, who served as Staff Director of the US EPA's Office of Air and Radiation prior to founding the Climate Institute in 1986.
In announcing Dr. MacCracken's appointment Climate Institute Chairman William A. (Bill) Nitze stated,
"The Climate Institute is quite fortunate to have someone of Mike MacCracken's world class intellect and thoughtfulness leading our climate science and impacts efforts. He has extensive experience not only on climate science issues but also on issues involving air quality. The Climate Institute strongly believes that these issues should be addressed in a coordinated and intelligent manner. In September 1999 in collaboration with Mexican partners, the US EPA and the World Bank the Institute convened the First North American Symposium on Coordinated Strategies for Climate and Air Quality Protection. Since that time the Climate Institute has worked to ensure that the public in the US and abroad has ready access to the best information on both climate change and air quality.
"In the spring of 2003 the Climate Institute was approached by Dr. MacCracken who was concerned that some in the Administration were suppressing information on the impacts of climate change, diminishing access to a rich source of information that can assist the public in adapting to and preparing for the emerging climatic conditions. We heeded his warning and posted in August 2003 the most extensive compilation of information on the Internet on climate change impacts and air quality that has been assembled to date. This information was on line as the Competitive Enterprise Institute pursued its effort by lawsuit and political pressure to suppress the distribution of the National Assessment on climate science. With Dr. MacCracken's help we are now engaged in greatly expanding the amount of information on climate change impacts and air quality. Our particular focus will be on developing information available to anyone on the planet with linkages among findings of different researchers and assessments. There is one potential lobby more powerful than the fossil fuel industry- the mothers and fathers of children who breathe the air today and must live with the consequences of our deteriorating climate. Armed with accurate and timely information, they can change the world.
"We are also quite disturbed that analysis of potential climate change impacts has been given minimal attention in the US Government's Climate Change Science Research Plan. Government funding is quite scarce for such research, just as evidence mounts that large-scale change may already be underway. The Climate Institute has asked Mike MacCracken to examine how the Institute might fill this large void. We expect soon to have a real road map for defining what is at risk and getting this out to those most affected."
MacCracken May 2005 Princeton Speech
Biography, Michael MacCracken, Ph.D.
