Sept. 4: Chris Field was elected Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group 2. He was formerly a coordinating lead author on the 2007 IPCC report, Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability to Climate Change and was one of two Americans to represent the IPCC at the 2007 Nobel Prize ceremonies. According to Chris, "In this new position, I will be working to make sure the IPCC continues with its present strengths, while also focusing on improving the coordination of the science and the effectiveness of the communication.  I am especially interested in finding ways to make the assessments of the IPCC useful for a wide range of stakeholders, including not only governments but also the private sector, NGOs, and individuals."
Sept. 11: Chris made the news in Nature Vol. 455, p. 144 in an article about the IPCC Meeting in Geneva that describes those newly elected or re-elected to Chair the various Working Groups. A fine photo of Chris (one of only two Americans elected) accompanies the article.
Noel Gurwick has accepted a Science-Policy Fellowship from the AAAS to work at the State Department beginning Sept 2. He'll be in the Bureau of Economics, Energy, and Business Affairs, Office of International Energy and Commodities Policy, working on the US-Brazil Biofuels Partnership and on Alternative Energy Technologies and climate generally.
Sept. 8: The Big Thaw by Adam Wolf was published in the Sept/Oct Issue of the Stanford Alumni Magazine. This article is a direct result of Adam's trip to the Russian Arctic described in this News Archive of Sept. 2007. As Siberia’s permafrost melts, billions of tons of carbon could escape and heat the planet. He poses the question: Do animals and plants hold a key to Earth’s thermostat? There is a related paper by Schuur et al. with Chris Field as one of the authors titled Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle in Bioscience 58 #8 (2008).
Sept: Ted Raab traveled to Suriname and Tanzania this last summer, and recently received a grant from NSF's Office of Polar Programs (2008-2011) to study iron- and humic-reducing bacteria on the N Coastal Plain of Alaska.
Sept. 26: The Field & Berry Lab Group met at noon to discuss plans for the Fall Quarter. It was decided to continue meeting weekly at this hour with members of the group discussing their current or planned research interests. Four new graduate students were introduced. Chris Field described a Workshop on Biofuels in Germany from which he had just returned. He also described the IPCC Meeting in Geneva when he was elected Co-Chair of Working Group 2 mentioned above. The Stanford Report of Sept. 24 describes what both Stanford and Carnegie may expect from Chris' leadership in this international organization during the next five years. His Co-Chair is Vicente Barros of Argentina.
Tasting: Four different brands of dark chocolate picked up by Chris in Germany. (Always a winner & so good for you!)

George Ban-Weiss, who recently received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California (Berkeley) joined the Caldeira Lab this month as a post-doctoral researcher. George will be engaged in a number of activities, but his first project will involve using climate models to investigate how