Gabriele C. Hegerl

Gabriele C. Hegerl (born 1962) is Professor of Climate System Science at the University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences. Prior to 2007 she held research positions at Texas A&M University and at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, during which time she was a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth and Fifth Assessment Report.

Her research is in the natural variability of climate and changes in climate due to natural and anthropogenic changes in radiative forcing (such as greenhouse warming, climate effects of volcanic eruptions and changes in solar radiation). Hegerl has also led well-known research on the attribution of modern climate change to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission.

She led a 2006 study examining climate sensitivity, then commonly accepted as 1.5-4.5K in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, to review observational studies suggesting that climate sensitivity could be as much as 7.7K or even exceed 9K. By using large-ensemble energy balance modelling to simulate temperature responses to historic changes in the radiative forcing effect of solar changes, volcanic eruptions and greenhouse gases, and comparing this to climate reconstructions, they produced an independent estimate that climate sensitivity was probably within the range of 1.5-6.2K. In an interview with The Washington Times, Hegerl said "Our reconstruction supports a lot of variability in the past".

She is a coordinating lead author on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report for Working Group I in the chapter on "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change". Her 2006 reconstruction was cited in the chapter on "Paleoclimate" in support of the conclusion that the 20th century was likely to have been the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere for at least 1,300 years.

She was a member of a team which reviewed recent reconstructions of the temperature record of the past 1000 years, and in 2007 published their own reconstruction from proxies, finding that the maximum pre-industrial temperature in 1,000 years had been significantly exceeded by recent instrumental temperatures.

Publications include:

• "Annular Modes in the Extratropical Circulation. Part II: Trends", by DWJ Thompson, JM Wallace, GC Hegerl - Journal of Climate, 2000
• "Simulation of the influence of solar radiation variations on the global climate with an ocean-atmosphere general circulation", by U Cubasch, R Voss, GC Hegerl, J Waszkewitz, T. J. Crowley - Climate Dynamics, 1997
• "Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change", by G. C. Hegerl, K. Hasselmann, U. Cubasch, J. F. B. Mitchell, E. Roeckner, R. Voss and J. Waszkewitz
• "Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method", by GC Hegerl, H von Storch, K Hasselmann, BD Santer, Ulrich Cubasch, and Philip D. Jones - Journal of Climate, 1996
• "Detection of climate change and attribution of causes", by JFB Mitchell, DJ Karoly, GC Hegerl, FW Zwiers, MR … - Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, 2001
• "The Effect of Local Sea Surface Temperatures on Atmospheric Circulation over the Tropical Atlantic" … by P Chang, R Saravanan, L Ji, GC Hegerl - Journal of Climate
• "On multi-fingerprint detection and attribution of greenhouse gas- and aerosol forced climate change", by GC HEGERL, K HASSELMANN, U CUBASCH, JFB MITCHELL, ROECKNER, E; VOSS, R; WASZKEWITZ, J - 1996