I am a Project Scientist in the Terrestrial Sciences Section within the Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory at NCAR. My research investigates how human and natural systems respond to the world's changing climate, and how human activities in turn impact back on the climate system. Since joining NCAR, I have become one of the agency's leading scientists on land use and land cover change, representing the agency in many international projects. The main focus of this research has been working on the World Meteorology Organization's (WMO) Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP) which inform the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports.


The most recent role I have played for NCAR has been as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Land Use Modeling Intercomparison Project ( LUMIP ) of CMIP6 . In this role I have been actively involved in the experimental design of the land use components of CMIP6, as well as producing all of the land use and land cover change time series for NCAR's Community Earth System Model ( CLM5 and CESM2 ) version 2.0, with code contributions available in my GitHub account . Additional projects I have represented NCAR in have included: the Agricultural Model Intercomparison Project ( AgMIP ); the European Union Land-Use Change project ( LUC4C ); the Land Use Change and Identification project ( LUCID ); the Climate Change Impacts and Integrated Assessment workshops as part of the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum; and with the Integrated Assessement Modeling Consortium, developing future human Shared Socio-economic Projections ( SSPs ) for climate modeling investigations for the CMIP5 and CMIP6 projects.


The most significant product that I have completed during my time at NCAR is the annual land use and land cover change scenarios for the CESM climate simulations for both the CMIP5 and CMIP6 projects covering the period from 850 to 2100c.e (see Lawrence et al. 2012 and Lawrence et al. 2018 ). These time series are used in every CESM simulation going back to CCSM4. The cropping component of the CMIP6 CESM land use and land cover time series has been developed from LUMIP crop fractions, irrigation areas and annual crop specific nitrogen fertilizer combined with crop area and irrigation fraction from high resolution EARTHSTAT , MIRCA 2000 and UN FAOSTAT data. The remaining natural, pasture and rangeland vegetation descriptions have been developed using high resolution MODIS , AVHRR , CRU and ICESAT data products combined with historical and future projections of land cover.


I have been an active member of the CESM Land Model, Biogeochemistry, and Societal Dimensions Working Groups for the last 14 years. For the three years 2014 - 2017 I was the acting Liaison Officer for the Societal Dimension Working Group. For the year 2017 - 2018, I was the seminar coordinator for the Climate and Global Dynamics (CGD) division running a weekly series of invited seminars from NCAR and international guests. I have been an active committee member to two PhD students and host to many PhD and Post-Doctoral visitors at NCAR. I also have been the Land Use and Land Model lecturer for the CESM and CLM tutorials for the last five years. My work has been written up and published through numerous journal articles, and delivered through invited presentations at conferences, meetings and at NCAR, as shown in my peer reviewed papers below and on Google Scholar.
Community Climate System Model – 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award: Joint
Recipient
University of Queensland – Doctor of Philosophy: Australian Research Council Strategic
Partnerships with Industry, Research and Training Scheme scholarship
Australian National University – Honours: Higher Education Contribution Scheme
Scholarship