Christopher Landsea | |
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| Born | (1965-02-04)February 4, 1965 (age 60) |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science |
| Alma mater | Colorado State University |
| Occupation | Atmospheric scientist |
| Organization(s) | Science and Operations Officer at theNational Hurricane Center |
| Notable work | Atlantic hurricane reanalysis National Hurricane Center:Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Tropical Cyclones: FAQ |
| Awards | American Meteorological Society's Banner I. Miller award (May 1993) 2007 NOAA Administrator's Award United States Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award for Superior Federal Service (Oct 2000) (co-recipient) |
Christopher William "Chris" Landsea is an Americanmeteorologist, formerly a researchmeteorologist with the Hurricane Research Division of theAtlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory atNOAA, and now the Science and Operations Officer at theNational Hurricane Center. He is a member of theAmerican Geophysical Union and theAmerican Meteorological Society.
Landsea earned his doctoral degree inAtmospheric Science atColorado State University. He served as chair of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Tropical Meteorology andTropical Cyclone. Landsea was recognized with the American Meteorological Society's Banner I. Miller award for "best contribution to the science of hurricane and tropical weather forecasting."[1]
Over the years Landsea's work has involved the general hurricaneFAQ currently on the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory website and theAtlantic hurricane reanalysis. Landsea has contributed toScience,Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,Journal of Climate, andNature. He has been vocal on the lack of a link betweenglobal warming and current hurricane intensity change.
Landsea has published a number of research papers oncyclones andhurricanes. He is the author ofHurricanes, Typhoons, and Tropical Cyclones: FAQ.[2] He also has been the lead scientist in theAtlantic hurricane reanalysis since 1997.
In January, 2005, Landsea withdrew from his participation in theIPCC Fourth Assessment Report, criticizing it for using "a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound."[3]Landsea claimed theIPCC had become politicized and the leadership ignored his concerns.[4]
Landsea does not consider thatglobal warming has a stronginfluence on hurricanes: "global warming might be enhancing hurricane winds but only by 1 percent or 2 percent".
According toSalon magazine,Bush administration personnel chose Landsea over another scientists at NOAA to speak to the news media about the link between hurricanes and climate change afterHurricane Katrina devastatedNew Orleans.[5]
In an interview onPBS, Landsea said "we certainly see substantial warming in theocean and atmosphere over the last several decades on the order of a degreeFahrenheit and I have no doubt a portion of that, at least, is due to greenhouse warming. The question is whether we're seeing any real increases in the hurricane activity." He went on to say "with the Atlantic hurricanes in particular, they're due to changes both in the ocean as well as the atmosphere. Just changing the ocean where it's a little bit warmer isn't sufficient." As for climate change affecting hurricane strength, Landsea said that global warming theories and numerical modeling suggest only that "hurricanes like Katrina and Rita may have been stronger due to global warming but maybe by one or two miles per hour."[6]
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