Peter Huybers (born 1974) is an American climate scientist, and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at
Harvard University, in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Life and work
Peter Huybers received a B.S. in
physics in 1996 from the
United States Military Academy at West Point, and a Ph.D. in climate chemistry and physics from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004. He was a NOAA Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Global Change in the Geology and Geophysics Department at
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 2004-2006.
Huybers has multiple research interests related to
climate science. First, Huybers is investigating the long-term climate cycles. He has advanced the hypothesis that a 41,000 year period of change connected to the Earth's tilt on its axis is dominant during the past 800,000 years, and that every second or third of these cycles produce a major deglaciation event. This deglaciation also appears to trigger changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, perhaps in part coming from radically increased volcanic activity during deglaciation. Second, he is studying annual temperature variations. Finally, Huybers is developing models to estimate historic temperatures based on the limited evidence available to us.
Huybers has published in ''Science'', ''Nature'', ''Geophysical Research Letters'', ''Quaternary Science Reviews'', ''Paleoceanography'', ''Climate of the Past'' and the ''Journal of Physical Oceanography''.
After completing West Point, his military career included leading a tank platoon as part of peacekeeping operations in
Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...
and testing technologies to reduce
friendly fire at the Mounted Warfare Testbed at
Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold res ...
, Kentucky. Huybers is married to Downing Lu, a military physician assigned to the pediatric intensive care unit at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Awards
He is the recipient of multiple awards, including a
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2009, a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering in 2009, the AGU
James B. Macelwane Medal
The James B. Macelwane Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union to three to five early career scientists (no more than 10 years beyond having received their Ph.D.). It is named after James B. Macelwane, a Jesuit priest and one of ...
in 2009,
a Harvard University Center for the Environment Fellowship in 2005, the MIT Carl-Gustaf Rossby Prize in 2004, and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship in 2001.
References
External links
Peter Huybers: ‘Ice ages are the outstanding mystery in Earth sciences’
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huybers, Peter
1974 births
Living people
American climatologists
United States Military Academy alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
Harvard University faculty
MacArthur Fellows