Mark Clifford Serreze (born 1960) is an American geographer and the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a project of the

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) is a research institute that is sponsored jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and the Un ...

at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

. He officially became the NSIDC's director in August 2009.Mark Serreze
NSIDC website In 2019, he was named a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography. Serreze is primarily known for his expertise in the

Arctic sea ice decline Arctic sea ice decline has occurred in recent decades due to the effects of climate change on oceans, with declines in sea ice area, extent, and volume. Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been melting more in summer than it refreezes in the winter. ...

that has occurred over the last few decades due to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, a topic about which he has expressed serious concern.

Early life and education

Serreze grew up in

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

, and credits its frequent snowy weather as an inspiration for his interest in studying ice. He received his PhD from the

in 1989.

Views on sea ice and global warming

In 2007, Serreze said that given the increasingly rapid rate at which Arctic ice has been melting, he thought it was "very reasonable" to expect the Arctic to be ice-free by 2030. He also blamed the decline primarily on anthropogenic global warming. Serreze became well known in 2008 when he described the state of Arctic sea ice as being in a "death spiral", and said it could disappear in the summers within several decades. Also that year, when contacted by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

, Serreze described the state of Arctic sea ice as being at a "tipping point," after which sea ice will plummet rapidly and added that 2007's then-record low sea ice levels were due in part to wind currents and other weather conditions as well as global warming. In regards to

Antarctic sea ice Antarctic sea ice is the sea ice of the Southern Ocean. It extends from the far north in the winter and retreats to almost the coastline every summer, getting closer and closer to the coastline every year due to sea ice melting. Sea ice is froze ...

extent, Serreze noted in an interview 2012 that it is known since years that Arctic sea ice vanishes first, and thus it is not a surprise that observations do not show big reductions and Antarctic sea ice doesn't disprove global warming.

Media appearances

In 2006 he was featured in the ''

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

'' documentary '' Global Warming: What You Need to Know''.

Publications

* Serreze, Mark C. (2018)
Brave New Arctic: The Untold Story of the Melting North
'. Princeton University Press. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Serreze, Mark Clifford Living people 1960 births American geographers University of Colorado Boulder alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty

Early life and education

Views on sea ice and global warming

Media appearances

See also

Publications

References