Carl Mears is a Senior Scientist, at

Remote Sensing Systems Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) is a private research company founded in 1974 by Frank Wentz. It processes microwave data from a variety of NASA satellites. Most of their research is supported by the Earth Science Enterprise program. The company is b ...

, since 1998. He has worked on validation of

SSM/I The Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) is a seven-channel, four-frequency, linearly polarized passive microwave radiometer system.Hollinger, J.P. 1989: ''DMSP Special Sensor Microwave/Imager Calibration/Validation''. Final Report, Vol. I., Spac ...

derived winds, and rain-flagging algorithm for the QuikScat

scatterometer A scatterometer or diffusionmeter is a scientific instrument to measure the return of a beam of light or radar waves scattered by diffusion in a medium such as air. Diffusionmeters using visible light are found in airports or along roads to measur ...

. He is best known for his work with

Frank Wentz Frank Wentz is the CEO and director of Remote Sensing Systems, a company he founded in 1974, which specializes in satellite microwave remote sensing research. Together with Carl Mears, he is best known for developing a satellite temperature record ...

in developing a

satellite temperature record Satellite temperature measurements are inferences of the temperature of the atmosphere at various altitudes as well as sea and land surface temperatures obtained from radiometric measurements by satellites. These measurements can be used to loc ...

from MSU and AMSU. Intercomparison of this record with the earlier UAH satellite temperature record, developed by

John Christy John Raymond Christy is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) whose chief interests are satellite remote sensing of global climate and global climate change. He is best known, jointly with Roy Spencer, for the firs ...

and Roy Spencer, revealed deficiencies in the earlier work; specifically, the warming trend in the RSS version is larger than the UAH one. Mears was a major contributor to ''Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences'', the first released report from the

US Climate Change Science Program The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was the program responsible for coordinating and integrating research on global warming by U.S. government agencies from February 2002 to June 2009. Toward the end of that period, CCSP issued 21 separate c ...

. He also contributed to the

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report ''Climate Change 2007'', the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in 2007 and is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and socio ...

Working Group one report, ''Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis''.

Education

* B.S. in physics from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

(1985) * PhD. in physics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

(1991)

Service

* convening lead author for the

U.S. Climate Change Science Program The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was the program responsible for coordinating and integrating research on global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temper ...

Synthesis and Assessment product 1.1 * contributing author to the

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

4th assessment report, chapter 3 ''Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change'

* member of the

Global Climate Observing System The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was established in 1992 as an outcome of the Second World Climate Conference, to ensure that the observations and information needed to address climate-related issues are obtained and made available to ...

Working Group on Atmospheric Reference Observations * member of the

WCRP WCRP (88.1 FM), branded on-air as 88.1 Inspira, is a radio station broadcasting a Contemporary Christian format. Licensed to Guayama, Puerto Rico Guayama (, ), officially the Autonomous Municipality of Guayama ( es, Municipio Autónomo de G ...

Stratospheric Trends Working Group, part of the

Stratospheric Processes And their Role in Climate The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Inter ...

(SPARC) project.

Selected publications

* Mears, C. A. and F. J. Wentz, (2009) Construction of the Remote Sensing Systems V3.2 Atmospheric Temperature Records From the MSU and AMSU Microwave Sounders, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, published online, . * Mears, C. A. and F. J. Wentz, (2005) The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature, , ''Science'', 309, 1548–1551. * Mears, C. A., M. C. Schabel and F. J. Wentz, (2003) A Reanalysis of the MSU Channel 2 Tropospheric Temperature Record, Journal of Climate, 16(22), 3650–3664. * Santer, B. D., T. M. L. Wigley, C. A. Mears, F. J. Wentz, S. A. Klein, D. J. Seidel, K. E. Taylor, P. W. Thorne, M. F. Wehner, P. J. Gleckler, J. S. Boyle, W. D. Collins, K. W. Dixon, C. Doutriaux, M. Free, Q. Fu, J. E. Hansen, G. S. Jones, R. Ruedy, T. R. Karl, J. R. Lanzante, G. A. Meehl, V. Ramaswamy, G. Russell and G. A. Schmidt, (2005) Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere, ''Science'', 309(5740), 1511–1556.

References

Living people Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contributing authors University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{meteorology-stub