Chris Derksen

Chris Derksen is a senior research scientist with the Climate Research Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada and holds adjunct faculty appointments at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a world leading expert on snow, with expertise spanning conventional observations, remote sensing, and climate model analysis. His research activities focus on the role of snow cover in the climate system, and the implications of climate change on snow, including freshwater availability, Arctic ecosystems, and the carbon cycle. Dr. Derksen has a leadership role in the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative – Snow project, responsible for the evaluation and application of new multi-decadal time series of satellite derived snow cover datasets. He is a co-chair of two international climate model intercomparison projects to advance understanding of how well the current generation of models simulate land surface processes. Dr. Derksen is the science lead for a new satellite radar mission focussed on terrestrial snow cover currently under development at the Canadian Space Agency. Between 2016 and 2018, he was responsible for the development and validation of land surface freeze/thaw products for the NASA Soil Moisture Active/Passive mission. He has contributed to numerous climate science assessments. Dr. Derksen was a lead author of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and was a lead author of Canada© Changing Climate Report, the first climate science assessment specifically produced for Canada. He continues to work in the Canadian Arctic and has participated in more than 25 snow and sea ice measurement campaigns across the Arctic, focused on the validation of airborne and satellite remote sensing products. Dr. Derksen has increasingly focused on science communication and public outreach on climate change science. He has over 150 peer reviewed publications and is a co-editor-in-chief of The Cryosphere.

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