A Discernible Human Influence: Schneider and Climate Change

Stephen Schneider, who died in July 2010, is looked upon as a pioneering mind and voice within the climate science community. Throughout his career, Schneider’s research paralleled the exploration of global warming trends in the 1970s and the increasing sense of urgency to address the risks caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions.

Among his legacies, Schneider championed an interdisciplinary research agenda, drawing on the physical and social sciences in studying climate change. A rising tide of interdisciplinary academic and research programs that extend across traditional concentrations is one of his lasting imprints. A forthcoming plan of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, to be announced in September, will recommend expanding the program’s scope along interdisciplinary lines. The development would “warm Steve’s heart,” says Warren Washington, a veteran atmospheric scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research who first met Schneider in 1972.

“A Discernible Human Influence: Schneider and Climate Change”

Pacific Standard, September 16, 2011