Michael Earl Schlesinger (February 23, 1943 – April 11, 2018) was a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Climate Research Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. (

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

) in 1976 from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. Michael Schlesinger was an expert in the modeling, simulation and analysis of

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

and

climate change 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 ...

, with interests in simulating and understanding the climates of the geologic past and possible future climates resulting from increased concentrations of

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...

es and human-made

aerosol An aerosol is a suspension (chemistry), suspension of fine solid particles or liquid Drop (liquid), droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be natural or Human impact on the environment, anthropogenic. Examples of natural aerosols are fog o ...

s. He was instrumental in developing a range of simple and complex climate models, which have been used by the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 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 ...

and the

Energy Modeling Forum The Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) is a structured forum for discussing important issues in energy and the environment. The EMF was established in 1976 at Stanford University. The EMF works through a series of ad hoc working groups, each focussing ...

. His research focused on: (1) simulating and understanding the effects on climate of a human-induced melting of the

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at Las ...

; (2) simulating and understanding the coupled climate-chemistry system, including the influences of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

– both irradiance and energetic

electron precipitation Electron precipitation (also called energetic electron precipitation or EEP) is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs when previously trapped electrons enter the Earth's atmosphere, thus creating communications interferences and other disturbances. ...

– and

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

es; (3) understanding and reducing the uncertainty in the estimation of

climate sensitivity Climate sensitivity is a measure of how much Earth's surface will cool or warm after a specified factor causes a change in its climate system, such as how much it will warm for a doubling in the atmospheric carbon dioxide () concentration. In te ...

and climate feedbacks; and (4) performing integrative assessment of climate change, including further development of the robust adaptive decision strategy for mitigating and adapting to human-induced climate change. He is known for his work on oscillations in the global climate system, on estimating the climate sensitivity, and on seasonal climate change. He edited four books, most recently ''Human-induced climate change: An interdisciplinary assessment''. He regularly appeared in the media.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Schlesinger, Michael E. American climatologists Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni 1943 births 2018 deaths