Ecologist Ted Schuur is available to discuss the UN climate talks and the countries’ agreements on how to approach climate change and emission reporting in an effort to stem the effects of a warming planet on the Earth’s ecosystems.

Schuur, a professor in the Center of Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University, has contributed to a number of international reports on the global climate and how countries are addressing climate change. He was a lead author on the Arctic and Boreal section of the Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report, released alongside the Fourth National Climate Assessment by the U.S. Global Change Research Program in late November. He was one of 10 U.S. science delegates at the Arctic Science Ministerial meeting in Berlin in October, a group that aims to respond to shifting geopolitical circumstances as environmental change opens up the Arctic to increased study. He also is a contributing author on the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, one of a three-part series of special reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization that informed the Paris climate accords.

He also is co-author on a paper published earlier this year that demonstrates more effective greenhouse gas controls could mitigate the negative effects of the release of carbon from thawing permafrost. He also is lead author on a paper written with fellow Ecoss professor Michelle Mack, “Ecological Response to Permafrost Thaw and Consequences for Local and Global Ecosystem Services,” published in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, that discusses the role of permafrost in identifying areas of vulnerability and resilience to climate change, ecological disturbance regimes and the human footprint. Schuur’s research focuses on the interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and global change, understanding the response of ecosystems to climate changes and disturbances and responses of arctic ecosystems to climate change.

Learn more about his lab.

Ted is available at ted.schuur@nau.edu or (928) 523-3559.