Meet the science team
Re: Meet the science team
Dr. Kevin Wood uses historical weather and sea ice information from ship logbooks to learn about environmental conditions in the Arctic in centuries past. Before joining the NOAA-University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean & Ecosystem Studies in 2004, he sailed the world's oceans for 25 years as a merchant marine officer. His interest in the historical climatology of the polar regions stems from his experience teaching on sail-training ships much like those used by 19th century explorers, and from working on research vessels in the ice-covered seas of the Arctic and Antarctic. By reconstructing environmental clues from the past, he is extending our baseline knowledge of the climate of the Arctic. In addition to his work in historical climatology he also leads the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s Arctic Heat Open Science Experiment, which develops innovative aircraft-deployed autonomous sensors for polar exploration and for the advancement of sea-ice and ecosystem monitoring and forecasting in a rapidly changing Arctic.
Re: Meet the science team
Other members of the science team:
Dr. Philip Brohan is a climate scientist at the UK Met Office in Exeter. He makes reconstructions of past climate variability and change, and really needs more historic weather observations to improve them. Philip originally conceived of Old Weather and led the first two phases focused on WWI Royal Navy.
Dr. Gil Compo is a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. He co-leads the NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20th Century Reanalysis Project to reconstruct global weather every 3 hours back to the 19th century. Every new weather observation can help improve the reconstruction of weather, climate and their extremes.
Mr. Mark Mollan is the Supervisory Archivist of the Navy Archives at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C. As former Reference Archivist of the Navy/Maritime Team at the National Archives and Records Administration (US), Mark provided coordination in the early phases of the project, and continues to facilitate research with Navy records.
Professor Ed Hawkins (MBE) is a climate scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading. He leads the UK Weather Rescue initiative to recover millions of lost-to-science weather observations from UK archives.
Dr. Philip Brohan is a climate scientist at the UK Met Office in Exeter. He makes reconstructions of past climate variability and change, and really needs more historic weather observations to improve them. Philip originally conceived of Old Weather and led the first two phases focused on WWI Royal Navy.
Dr. Gil Compo is a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. He co-leads the NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20th Century Reanalysis Project to reconstruct global weather every 3 hours back to the 19th century. Every new weather observation can help improve the reconstruction of weather, climate and their extremes.
Mr. Mark Mollan is the Supervisory Archivist of the Navy Archives at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C. As former Reference Archivist of the Navy/Maritime Team at the National Archives and Records Administration (US), Mark provided coordination in the early phases of the project, and continues to facilitate research with Navy records.
Professor Ed Hawkins (MBE) is a climate scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading. He leads the UK Weather Rescue initiative to recover millions of lost-to-science weather observations from UK archives.
Re: Meet the science team
Thanks for the bios! 
Re: Meet the science team
Indeed! A very nice bunch of boffins 
Re: Meet the science team
Thank you for these biographies Kevin 
Re: Meet the science team
Hi all! My name is Molly and I just started this week working with Kevin as a summer intern, so I thought I'd introduce myself here. I am a rising senior at College of the Atlantic, a small liberal arts college in Bar Harbor, Maine (right next to Acadia National Park). My major is in Human Ecology, an interdisciplinary major which on the connection between human beings and their natural, built, and social environments. For me, this has meant a course of study focused largely on government and environmental law and policy, but I was drawn to this project in particular by my love of natural history, human history, and the connections between the two. It has already been so wonderful to learn about how Old Weather has united science and history, data and stories, and people from all over, and I am so looking forward to being a part of it and getting to know this community!
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Welcome to the team and to the community!
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A hearty welcome to you Molly!! I hope that you enjoy sailing the icy seas with us
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Welcome, Molly!
Re: Meet the science team
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder
Some links to the CIRES researchers:
Gilbert Compo
Winners of the CIRES 2021 Silver Medal
CIRES Silver Medal
Gilbert P. Compo, Don “Hoop” Hooper, Chesley McColl, Prashant D. Sardeshmukh, Laura C. Slivinski, Catherine Smith, Lawrence J. Spencer
For creating a 200-year Historic Reanalysis dataset of global weather and extremes from only surface pressure and sea surface temperature observations.
Winners of the 2017 CIRES Gold Medal For Scientific/Engineering Achievement
Gilbert Compo, Prashant Sardeshmukh, and Chesley McColl were part of a team in NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory recognized with a Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2016. Compo, Sardeshmukh and McColl and NOAA’s Jeff Whitaker created the 20th Century Reanalysis, a pioneering reconstruction of global weather and extremes using only surface pressure observations. The Department of Commerce's Gold Medal recognizes distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable, or prestigious contributions, but it can only be used to recognize federal employees. CIRES awards CIRES Gold Medals for team members critical to award-winning work.
Gilbert Compo in NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, won for leading the development of the 20th Century Reanalysis. Compo initiated the original idea behind the reanalysis (i.e., a reanalysis that relied only on surface pressure records and thus could extend back more than 100 years) and then managed and curated the large undertaking of creating of the reanalysis itself. This effort has inspired creation of a similar effort at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and thus has been international in its level of impact and influence.
“Gil had the vision to see the need for a long, consistent climate record, the imagination to see that weather forecasting techniques could be useful even when observations were few and far between, the commitment to assemble the enormous resources required to implement the idea, and the generosity to involve everyone who became fascinated along the way,” his nominator wrote.
Some links to the CIRES researchers:
Gilbert Compo
Winners of the CIRES 2021 Silver Medal
CIRES Silver Medal
Gilbert P. Compo, Don “Hoop” Hooper, Chesley McColl, Prashant D. Sardeshmukh, Laura C. Slivinski, Catherine Smith, Lawrence J. Spencer
For creating a 200-year Historic Reanalysis dataset of global weather and extremes from only surface pressure and sea surface temperature observations.
Winners of the 2017 CIRES Gold Medal For Scientific/Engineering Achievement
Gilbert Compo, Prashant Sardeshmukh, and Chesley McColl were part of a team in NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory recognized with a Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2016. Compo, Sardeshmukh and McColl and NOAA’s Jeff Whitaker created the 20th Century Reanalysis, a pioneering reconstruction of global weather and extremes using only surface pressure observations. The Department of Commerce's Gold Medal recognizes distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable, or prestigious contributions, but it can only be used to recognize federal employees. CIRES awards CIRES Gold Medals for team members critical to award-winning work.
Gilbert Compo in NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, won for leading the development of the 20th Century Reanalysis. Compo initiated the original idea behind the reanalysis (i.e., a reanalysis that relied only on surface pressure records and thus could extend back more than 100 years) and then managed and curated the large undertaking of creating of the reanalysis itself. This effort has inspired creation of a similar effort at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and thus has been international in its level of impact and influence.
“Gil had the vision to see the need for a long, consistent climate record, the imagination to see that weather forecasting techniques could be useful even when observations were few and far between, the commitment to assemble the enormous resources required to implement the idea, and the generosity to involve everyone who became fascinated along the way,” his nominator wrote.
Re: Meet the science team
That's who our weather data goes to!
Re: Meet the science team
Congratulations Gil and team!
Re: Meet the science team
Well done Team