is the founding director of the
International Arctic Research Center
The International Arctic Research Center, or IARC, established in 1999, is a research institution focused on integrating and coordinating study of Climate change in the Arctic. The primary partners in IARC are Japan and the United States. Partici ...
of the
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for cla ...
(UAF), serving in that position from the center's establishment in 1998 until January 2007. Previously he had been director of the university's
Geophysical Institute The Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks conducts research into space physics and aeronomy; atmospheric sciences; snow, ice, and permafrost; seismology; volcanology; and tectonics and sedimentation. It was founded in 1946 by ...
from 1986.
Background
Akasofu earned a B.S. and a M.S. in
geophysics
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
at
Tohoku University
, or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...
,
Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...
, Japan, in 1953 and 1957, respectively. He earned a Ph.D in geophysics at
UAF in 1961. Within the framework of his Ph.D. thesis he studied the
aurora
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
. His scientific adviser was
Sydney Chapman. Akasofu has been a professor of
geophysics
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
at
UAF since 1964.
Akasofu was director of the
Geophysical Institute The Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks conducts research into space physics and aeronomy; atmospheric sciences; snow, ice, and permafrost; seismology; volcanology; and tectonics and sedimentation. It was founded in 1946 by ...
from 1986 until 1999, during which time the
Alaska Volcano Observatory
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) is a joint program of the United States Geological Survey, the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the State of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (ADGGS). AVO ...
was established and
Poker Flat Research Range
The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on a site at Chatanika, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and 1.5 degrees south of the Arcti ...
was modernized. He went on to become the first director of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) upon its establishment in 1998, and remained in that position until 2007. The same year, the building which houses IARC was named in his honor.
Akasofu has served as an Associate Editor of the ''Journal of Geophysical Research'' (1972–74) and the ''Journal of Geomagnetism & Geoelectricity'' (1972–present), respectively. Furthermore, he has served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the ''Planetary Space Science'' (1969–present), the Editorial Advisory Board of ''Space Science Reviews'' (1967–77), and the Editorial Committee of ''Space Science Reviews'' (1977–present). As a graduate student, Akasofu was one of the first to understand that the northern aurora was actually an aurora of light surrounding the North Magnetic Pole.
Climate change
Akasofu
does not accept the
scientific consensus on climate change
There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...
that it is anthropogenic. In 2006, he testified to the
(Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts) that “… we have at least two firm scientific indicators that show it is incorrect to conclude that this warming in the continental Arctic is due entirely to the greenhouse effect caused by man.” He instead ascribes warming to natural variation and has stated that "… climate change, or temperature, has been rising. Somehow 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 ...
decided that the increase in the last 100 years is due to the greenhouse effect; however, a significant part of that would be just due to natural change. So, even if we spend lots of money on suppressing CO2 release, it wouldn’t do any good, because it’s a natural change."
Akasofu presented a talk on "Natural Causes of 20th Century Warming: Recovery from the Little Ice Age and Oscillatory Change" at the
Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking.
Founded in 1984, it worked wit ...
's 2nd International Conference on Climate Change in New York (2009). In the scientific literature, he claimed that the "rise in global average temperature over the last century has halted since roughly the year 2000, despite the fact that the release of CO
2 into the atmosphere is still increasing" and that "this interruption has been caused by the suspension of the near linear (+ 0.5 °C/100 years or 0.05 °C/10 years) temperature increase over the last two centuries, due to recovery from the
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
". These claims were shown to be "not connected to any physical phenomenon; rather ... a result of a simplistic and incorrect curve-fitting operation".
Global average temperature rose approximately 0.5 °C between 2000 and 2020.
Selected publications
He is an
ISI highly cited researcher
The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...
.
* Akasofu, S.-I., Polar and Magnetospheric Substorms,
D. Reidel
D. Reidel was an academic publishing company based in Dordrecht established in the 1960s which was independent until the 1990s.
History
Reidel was established in the 1960s, with a focus on publishing research in physics. Reidel himself had been t ...
Pub. Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1968, (also a Russian edition).
* Akasofu, S.-I., B. Fogle, and B. Haurwitz, Sydney Chapman, Eighty, published by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Publishing Service of the University of Colorado, 1968.
* Akasofu, S.-I. and S. Chapman, Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, 1972, (also a Russian and Chinese edition).
* Akasofu, S.-I., The Aurora: A Discharge Phenomenon Surrounding the Earth, (in Japanese), Chuo-koran- sha, Tokyo, Japan.
* Akasofu, S.-I., Physics of Magnetospheric Substorms, D. Reidel, Pub. Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1977.
* Akasofu, S.-I., Aurora Borealis: The Amazing Northern Lights, Alaska Geographic Society, Alaska Northwest Pub. Co., 6, 2, 1979, (also a Japanese edition).
* Akasofu, S.-I. (ed.), Dynamics of the Magnetosphere, D. Reidel Pub. Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1979.
* Akasofu, S.-I. and J.R. Kan (eds.), Physics of Auroral Arc Formation, Am. Geophys. Union, Washington, D.C., 1981.
* Akasofu, S.-I. and Y. Kamide (eds.), The Solar Wind and the Earth, Geophys. Astrophys. Monographs, Terra Scientific Pub. Co., Tokyo, Japan, and D. Reidel Pub. Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1987.
* Akasofu, S.-I., Secrets of the Aurora Borealis, Alaska Geographic Society, Banta Publications Group/Hart Press, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2002.
* Akasofu, S.-I. Exploring the Secrets of the Aurora, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 2002.
Awards and honors
* 1976 -
Chapman Medal,
Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
, successor =
, formation =
, founder =
, extinction =
, merger =
, merged =
, type = NGO ...
* 1977 -
The Japan Academy of Sciences Award
* 1979 - Fellow of the
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...
(AGU)
* 1979 -
John Adam Fleming
John Adam Fleming, (January 28, 1877 – July 29, 1956) was an American geophysicist interested in the magnetosphere and the atmospheric electricity.
Fleming worked first at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey with his superior Louis Agricola Ba ...
Medal,
AGU
* 1980 - Named a Distinguished Alumnus by
UAF
* 1981 - Named one of the "1,000 Most-Cited Contemporary Scientists by Current Contents
* 1985 - First recipient of the Sydney Chapman Chair professorship,
UAF
* 1985 - Special Lecture for the
Emperor of Japan
The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...
on the aurora (October 3)
* 1986 - Member of the International Academy of Aeronautics, Paris
* 1987 - Named one of the "Centennial Alumni" by the
* 1993 - Japan Foreign Minister's Award for Promoting International Relations and Cultural Exchange between Japan and Alaska
* 1996 - Japan Posts and Telecommunications Minister Award for Contributions to the US-Japan Joint Project on Environmental Science in Alaska
* 1997 - Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence,
University of Alaska
The University of Alaska System is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was created in 1917 and comprises three separately accredited universities on 19 campuses. The system serves nearly 30,000 full- and part-time stud ...
* 1999 - Alaskan of the Year - Denali Award
* 2002 - Named one of the "World's Most Cited Authors in Space Physics" by Current Contents ISI
* 2003 -
Order of the Sacred Treasures
The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest tw ...
, Gold and Silver Stars by the Emperor of Japan
* 2011
European Geosciences Union, Hannes Alfvén Medal
References
External links
Syun-Ichi Akasofu at the International Arctic Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Akasofu, Syun-Ichi
1930 births
Living people
People from Nagano Prefecture
People from Fairbanks, Alaska
American geophysicists
Japanese climatologists
Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd class
Tohoku University alumni
University of Alaska Fairbanks alumni
University of Alaska Fairbanks faculty
American academics of Japanese descent
Fellows of the American Geophysical Union
Japanese emigrants to the United States
Japanese geophysicists