Beate G. Liepert

Beate Gertrud Liepert is a research scientist at Columbia University, as well as in North West Research Associates, Redmond. Her research focuses on climate variability: inter-annual changes, centennial time scales, the water and energy cycles.

Beate pioneered research on global dimming, which is the reduction of atmospheric transparency due to air pollution and inter-decadal cloud changes. She worked on implications of global dimming for climate: how and to what extend air pollution masks global warming, and how air pollution can spin down the hydrological cycle in a warmer and moister world. Some of her theoretical studies deal with climate forcing and feedbacks as studied in models and observations. She developed a climate model evaluation and ranking system that relies on first physical principles and self-consistency. Aerosol and solar radiation measurements in urban, as well as rural environments are also part of her research agenda, as is studying the effects of light quality on plant growths and ecosystems. More recently she started applying her knowledge to solar energy resource assessments and optimizing photovoltaic systems as alternative to fossil fuel and nuclear technologies [1] .

Beate contributed a section on global dimming to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report “Scientific Basis” (chapter 3.4.4.2) that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.[2][3]