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Global climate change scientist Professor Rachel Warren is internationally respected for her research but few people outside her circle realise the scale and reach of her work.
In this episode Rachel explains how an early interest in bird conservation marked the start of her awareness of the environment. She was Young Ornithologist of the Year in 1977. But despite this love, she did not study biology to A level, her timetable was simply too packed. However, she did opt for natural sciences at Cambridge University, which allowed her to study both biology and physics initially.
During those Cambridge years, a growing appreciation of the global scale of environmental problems and the air that we breathe heightened Rachel's desire to work to conserve the atmosphere and protect the environment. She completed a PhD in physics at Cambridge, then joined the University of Colorado's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
She worked with Prof Ravishankara, a world renowned scientist, and helped to develop selection criteria for replacements for CFCs in fridges, in order to minimize their damage to the ozone layer and their contribution to climate change. She co-authored a large number of scientific publications in very good journals in that lab, including one award winning paper in Science.
Despite academics in the US being better paid than those in the UK, Rachel returned to England and joined Imperial College London. She made the change from experimental work to computer modelling, and from the ozone layer to air pollution closer to the ground.
Working on varied topics allowed her to develop a broader understanding of different aspects of atmospheric science and policy, as well as new scientific approaches, which prepared her for the interdisciplinary work that she now does.
In the middle of all her research work she also studied ecology at the Open University – largely because she had dropped the subject at university and wanted to expand her knowledge.
Jump forward to the present day and Rachel's research papers are trusted by world governments, policy makers and the United Nations Economic Commission. They have been cited by fellow academics more than 27,000 times worldwide.
Since starting her work on climate change Rachel points out:
Today Rachel is focussed on quantifying the risks we would all avoid through climate change mitigation and the risks climate change poses to biodiversity.
As a professor at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia (UEA), she wants the next generation of climate scientists to join her and emphasises the opportunities the Tyndall Centre offers young scientists.
She discusses:
Professor Rachel Warren's career biography
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, UK
The Montreal Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol
Season 1 Episode 4: Nick Molden, founder and CEO of Emissions Analytics
Season 1 Episode 3: Laura Yeates and Leora Shlasko of the Sustainable Recruitment Alliance
