Elisabeth 'Beth' Holland

Elisabeth A. Holland
Senior Scientist
Director Biogeosciences Program

National Center for Atmospheric Research
Atmospheric Chemistry Division (ACD) and
The Institute for the Integrative & Multidiciplinary Earth Sciences (TIIMES)

Contact Information:

Phone: 303.497.1433
Fax: 303.497-1400
Email: eholland@ucar.edu

Mailing Address:
NCAR - ACD & TIIMES
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO USA 80307-3000

Office Address:
NCAR - ACD & TIIMES
3450 Mitchell Lane
FL0 - 1130 (also ML-100C)
Boulder, CO 80301

Brief Biography

Elisabeth Holland leads the Biogeoscience Program (BGS) and is a lead scientist in the Bio-hydro-atmosphere interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, Water, Organics & Nitrogen (BEACHON) project.

In October 2007 she along with Al Gore and the other Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports lead authors of the 2007 report was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was also a lead and contributing author for the aUNEP led Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Report. She has and continues to be a featured scientist in the media.

Holland is a Leopold Fellow and has served on many committees and panels. Services of special note are: Elected to the International Committee on Atmospheric Chemistry & Global Pollution (2002), Director, NATO Advanced Study Institute on Soils & Global Change: Carbon Cycle, Trace Gas Exchange, & Hydrology (1997), Committee for the NRC reports-Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences and Strategic Guidance for National Science Foundation Support of Atmospheric Sciences, Participant in a White House Office of Science & Technology Policy Exercise to Demonstrate the vale of index areas in a national network (1997), AGU Associate Editor, Atmospheres (1992-1996), and Leader of ACD’s Junior Scientist Forum (1997-1999).

Her research interests include: Global nitrogen cycle, Earth System Modeling, using measurements to evaluate models, linking atmospheric chemistry & terrestrial biogeochemistry, interactions between the terrestrial carbon & nitrogen cycles, using nitrogen deposition measurements to understand the global nitrogen cycle, terrestrial trace gas exchange.

In the News:

Climate Change Threatens Native Livelihoods

KUNC 91.5 Public News Room by Kirk Siegler interview with Beth Holland (25 March 2008)

Public opinion polls in the United States continue to show significant skepticism that global warming is happening. Some scientists believe that's because, for the most part, our lives have yet to change much. A group of scientists and Native American leaders meeting in Boulder this month sought ways to change this perception. KUNC's Kirk Siegler reports...more (mp3 direct link)

Bridging divides at climate change symposium

Indian Country Today by Carol Berry (31 March 2008)

BOULDER, Colo. - Scientists and American Indian tribal leaders met March 20 to bridge cultural and technical divides in an effort to combat global warming and to forge a Western/indigenous approach to other hazards facing planet Earth and its inhabitants...more

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Women's Magazine Online by Erin Love (8 March 2008)

An in depth Q&A with Nobel Laureates SUSAN SOLOMON, BETH HOLLAND, BETTE OTTO-BLIESNER, LINDA MEARNS, PATY ROMERO-LANKAO and KATHLEEN MILLER.

Six Boulder women joined the ranks of Marie Curie and Mother Theresa as Nobel laureates when they received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The women were part of a team of a few thousand scientists that reviewed massive amounts of research and authored four esteemed reports on global warming. The reports silenced the debate about human contribution to global warming and presented policymakers worldwide with the science needed to implement changes to protect the earth and its citizens....more

Native Americans, Scientists To Discuss Climate Change at Landmark Symposium

Elisabeth Holland
NewsWise (6 March 2008)

Leading representatives from indigenous and scientific communities will take part in a landmark climate change symposium at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder. The March 19-21 event will bring together two climate change perspectives--one rooted in indigenous experiencesand one informed by current scientific results.

The symposium, Planning for Seven Generations: Traditional and Scientific Approaches to Climate Change, is open to scientists, Native American representatives, and members of the public. Sponsors include the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, NCAR, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which operates NCAR. NCAR's primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.

"By bringing together the holders of scientific knowledge and the holders of indigenous knowledge, we will gain a fuller picture of the world we all live in and share--a fuller knowledge that will help us respond to the changing climate," says Professor Daniel Wildcat of the Haskell Indian Nations University.

"For the health and sustainability of our beautiful Earth, it is critical that we build bridges to share wisdom and to allow us all to work together now for our great-great-granddaughter's grandaughter's generation," says NCAR senior scientist Elisabeth Holland. more...

Also see:
Eureka Alert article (6 March 2008)

Study looks at transportation's effects on global warming
USA Today by Doyle Rice (9 January 2008)
Elisabeth Holland

Elisabeth Holland, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, who was not part of the study, was impressed with the research: "This is a comprehensive study," she says, "that takes a careful look at how all the emissions from the transport sector are handled." more....

Nobel Peace Prize 2007

IPCC Shares Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore (11 October 2007)

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

IPCC Shares Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore

Guy Brasseur, William Collins, Elisabeth Holland, Reto Knutti, Linda Mearns, Gerald Meehl, Kevin Trenberth - Additional NCAR Authors

IPCC Shares Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore Congratulations to the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore on their Nobel Peace Prize award. Since 1990, the IPCC has issued four reports highlighting the growing understanding of the climate change issue. Scientists both at NCAR and within our wider research community contributed significantly to these reports. Published this year, the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report leverages computer modeling that depicts global climate with unprecedented detail. Through support of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation's supercomputing centers, and partnership with Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, the NCAR-based Parallel Climate Model and Community Climate System Model provided a wealth of scientific data to the IPCC report. Related: Article by the Associated Press, Thousands of Scientists Share Nobel....more

Kevin Trenberth Webcast discussion of the IPCC Report

Nobel Peace Prize Press Release

Working Group I:
Summary | NCAR Scientiests & biographies who made major contributions

Working Group II:
Summary | NCAR Scientiests & biographies who made major contributions

General Information:
Understanding Climate Change (UCAR)

A few of the many other press coverage links:

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (Women's Magazine Online by Erin Love 8 March 2008)
Holland lead author in IPCC fourth assessment (Aldo Leopold Leadership Program 2 February 2008)
Gore says prize must spur action (BBC News, 13 October 2007)
Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work (New York Times, 13 October 2007)
Gore and U.N. Panel Share Peace Prize (Washingtonpoast.com, 13 October 2007)
Gore shares Nobel Peace Prize with U.N. panel (CNN.com, 12 October 2007)
Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize (BBC News, 12 October 2007)
Boulder's IPCC lead authors ( Daily Camera, 13 October 2007)
Local scientists part of Nobel-winning effort (Daily Camera by Laura Snider, 12 October 2007)
NCAR Scientists & Technical Staff Share in Nobel Peace Prize with IPCC Colleagues Around the World (NCAR News Release, 11 October 2007)
Colorado Scientists share in Nobel Prize (Rocky Mountain News, 13 October 2007)
Boulder's IPCC lead authors (Daily Camera 13 October 2007)
Local scientists part of Nobel-winning effort (Daily Camera by Laura Snider 12 October 2007)

100 Biggest Weather Moments

Weather Channel Series (April 2007)

The Weather Channel has produced a new series featuring the top 100 Biggest Weather Moments. Elisabeth Holland (ACD-TIIMES) appears in the following clips.

#58 - Year without a Summer; Eruption of Mt. Tambora. If TV had existed in 1816, many New Englanders wouldn't have believed their local weatherman forecasting snow in summer. But sure enough, that's exactly what fell out of the sky one day in June.

#52 - America's wake-up call; Almost 30 years after its publication, the book Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson, is recognized, evoking ominous images of DDT, bird and fish kills, and pesticide danger. She was the first major voice of the modern environmental movement. This marine biologist and zoologist had an immense respect for the natural world. Her desire to protect the ecosystem and all forms of life was at the heart of her groundbreaking and still controversial best-selling 1962 book about the connection between pesticides and the food chain.

#35 - Discovery of the Ozone hole; Scientist discovered in the 1970s that dandy hair-dos came at a price. The spray being used to hold up that big hair was giving the Earth a little bit of a bald spot.

#22 - Air pollution's ground zero; Donora, Pennsylvania 1948: Creation of the EPA. When a weather system interacted with a noxious cloud from a small, industrial city in 1948, it did more than blanket the town in a toxic fog and sicken 7,000 of its residents, killing almost two dozen of them. It also spawned the birth of the Clean Air movement in the U.S.A.

After IPCC, 26 scientists speak on global warming

Earth & Sky (2 Feb 2007)

Elisabeth Holland … “no longer uncertain” - I’m speaking here from my personal scientific view – not as an author of an IPCC chapter, but my personal view. My view is that most of us scientists are now convinced that global warming is happening. We are now convinced that the most likely cause of global warming is human activity. And we are no longer uncertain about whether the climate is warming. We are actually quite certain that the climate is warming, and we are certain that human activity is the cause."

Other IPCC Related Interviews with:
Beth Daly (Boston Globe)
Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post)

Boulder Scientists Key to Study

Climate change report says global warming likely caused by humans (referring to the announcement 2007 IPCC Report), by Todd Neff (Boulder Daily Camera, 2 Feb 2007)

"I think the scientific community as well as the political community are going to be stunned by the body of evidence and how convincing it is," said Elisabeth Holland, a National Center for Atmospheric Research senior scientist and one of the lead authors. "The evidence is compelling in a way that it never has been before because we just simply didn't have all the pieces."

Additional recent articles and interviews

Research Interests & Activities:

Dr. Elisabeth A. Holland’s work focuses on interrelated objectives: to better understand how our planet works; to get lost in the beauty and magic of the doing science, and to ensure that science serves the society that supports it. The links between the chemistry of the atmosphere, climate change, and ecosystems are a good example of how intriguing and complex the sustenance of our planet is. The climate system, air pollution and terrestrial ecosystems all interact to impact one another.

Dr. Holland’s scientific passion has been to understand the nitrogen cycle and how it interacts with the carbon cycle and how both are affected by climate and the changing water cycle on a variety of scales. Her early work focused on microbes living in soils. More recently, she has focused on continental and global nitrogen deposition patterns and their impacts on carbon cycling.

Activities:

• NCAR-wide Biogeosciences Strategic Program (BGS)

• Impacts of atmospheric chemistry on the biosphere: feedbacks on water and carbon cycles

• Global Biogeochemical Cycles

• Regional Carbon Cycle

• Biosphere-atmosphere Exchange of Aerosols within Cloud, Carbon and Hydrologic cycles, including Organics and Nitrogen (BEACHON)

• Linking atmospheric chemistry and terrestrial ecology

• The global nitrogen cycle

• Nitrogen deposition

• Reactive chemical exchange and land surface parameterizations

• Canopy regulation of ozone and reactive nitrogen exchange

• Reactive nitrogen measurements

• Using Nitrogen depositionmeasurements to understand the global nitrogen cycle

• Interactions between the terrestrial carbon and nitrogencycles

• Terrestrial trace gas exchange

• Combining models and measurements

• 

  NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI): Soils and Global Change: Carbon Cycle, Trace Gas Exchange, and Hydrology - Director

• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - Lead Author on Current States & Trends

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Lead Author of Working Group 1 - Physical Science Basis, Chapter 7, "Couplings Between the Climate System and Biogeochemistry". IPCC Climate Change 2007 Report Information

Highlighted Articles and Figures

Land use and expanding industrialization are changing nitrogen deposition in Brazil - in press

Lara, L.L.S, E.A. Holland, P. Artaxo, P.B. Camargo, and L.A. Martinelli
Biogeochemistry: in press, 2006

Assessing future nitrogen deposition & carbon cycle feedback using a multimodel approach: Analysis of nitrodeposition - pdf

J.-F. Lamarque, J.T. Kiehl, G.P. Brasseur, T. Butler, P. Cameron-Smith, W.D. Collins, W.J. Collins, C. Granier, D. Hauglustaine, P.G. Hess, E.A. Holland, L. Horowitz, M.G. Lawrence, D. McKenna, P. Merilees, M.J. Prather, P.J. Rasch, D. Rotman, D. Shindell, P. Thornton
Journal of Geopysical Research, 110: D19303, doi: 10.1029/2005JD005825, 2005
Figures:
Sea Surface Temperature for 2000 & 2100
Annual total surface NOx emission for 2000 & 2100

Nitrogen deposition onto the United States and Western Europe: A synthesis of observations and models - pdf

Holland, E. A., B. H. Braswell, J. Sulzman, and J. F. Lamarque
Ecological Applications, 15(1): 38-57, 2005
Figure: Estimated N deposition fluxes in USA & Western Europe

U.S. Nitrogen Science Plan Focuses Collaborative Efforts

Holland, E.A., E. A. Holland, A. Guenther, and J. Lee-Taylor, S. B. Bertman, M. A. Carroll, P. B. Shepson, J. P. Sparks
EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 86(27): 253-260, 2005

Long-term sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to warming - pdf

Knorr, W., I. C. Prentice, J. I. House, and E. A. Holland
Nature, 433, 298, doi:10.1038/nature03226, 2005

Nitrogen deposition for the United States and Western Europe, 1978–1994. [Data set]

Holland, E. A., B. H. Brasswell, J. Sulzman, and J.-F. Lamarque
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Data Access and Archiving Center, Oak Ridge, TN, 2004
Date Set

Uncertainties in the Temperature Sensitivity of Decomposition in Tropical and Subtropical Ecosystems: Implications for Models

Elisabeth A. Holland, Jason C. Neff, Alan R. Townsend, and Becky McKeown
Global Biogeochemical Cycles 14: 1137-1151, 2000
Figure: Decomposition Factor, Soil Organic Carbon, Heterotrophic Respiration

Contemporary and Pre-industrial Global Reactive Nitrogen Budgets

Elisabeth A. Holland, Frank J. Dentener, Boby H. Braswell & James M. Sulzman
Biogeochemistry 46: 7-43, 1999.
Figures:
- MOGUNTIA Pre-industrial NOy & NHx deposition
- GUNTIA Contemporary NOy & NHx deposition
- MOGUNTIA Pre-industrial & Contemporary total (NHx + NOy) deposition

Variations in the predicted spatial distribution of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and their impact on carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems - pdf

Elisabeth A. Holland, B.H. Braswell, J-F Lamarque, A. Townsend, J. Sulzman, J-F Müller, F. Dentener, G. Brasseur, H. Levy II, J.E. Penner, and G-J Roelofs
Journal of Geophysical Research 102(D13): 15, 849-15, 866, 1997.
Figure: Global distribution of carbon storage simulations

Modeling Bio-atmospheric Coupling of the Nitrogen Cycle through NOx Emissions and NOy Deposition

Elisabeth A. Holland & Jean-Francios Lamarque
Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 48: 7-24, 1997
Figures:
- NOx emissions, All Sources & only Biomass Burning
- NOx emissions, Fossil Fuel & Soil
- Total deposition, All Sources & only Biomass Burning
- Total deposition, Fossil Fuel & Soil

Academic Press Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology:

Nitrogen cycle, biological