AI Insight
Prof Detlef van Vuuren, a climate modeller at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Utrecht University, has been identified as the most cited author across all IPCC reports since 1990. His work, particularly the RCP8.5 climate scenario, has recently drawn criticism from climate skeptics including Donald Trump, who called it "wrong, wrong, wrong" on social media. Van Vuuren leads a team of modellers in the Hague and is recognized as one of the world's leading climate scientists in his field.
Why it matters
Van Vuuren's extensive citation record reflects the significant influence of his climate modeling work on global climate policy and scientific consensus. The RCP8.5 scenario he developed has been fundamental to understanding potential future climate pathways and informing international climate negotiations and assessments.
Understand the Science
Detlef van Vuuren is one of the world’s leading climate modellers and, as a result, a high-profile focus of his life’s work – the “RCP8.5” scenario – has recently been targeted as “wrong, wrong, wrong” by Donald Trump.
Speaking to Carbon Brief at his office in the Hague, Van Vuuren cuts a serious, but relaxed figure – despite, momentarily, being caught in the white heat of global media attention following the social-media post by the climate-sceptic US president.
Leading a team of modellers at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in the Dutch administrative capital, Van Vuuren also holds a professorship at the faculty of geosciences at Utrecht University.
Analysis of Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database reveals that, out of many thousands of researchers, he is the author most cited within all the reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1990.
The post Prof Detlef van Vuuren: The climate scientist most cited by the IPCC appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Source: Prof Detlef van Vuuren: The climate scientist most cited by the IPCC