Stuart Gaffin

New York

Stuart Gaffin is a Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University. Prior to joining Columbia in 2001, he was a senior scientist in the Atmosphere Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, NYC from 1989. His Ph.D. was in Atmospheric and Paleoclimate Studies from the former Earth Systems Group at New York University. Dr. Gaffin is a faculty member for the new undergraduate Sustainable Development Major first offered at Columbia University in 2011. He teaches the senior capstone workshop in sustainable development every Fall and Spring Semester. His current and recent areas of research include: (i) projections of New York City regional climate impacts including temperature, precipitation, extreme events and sea level rise; (ii) the urban heat island effect and the role of urban vegetation and high-albedo surfaces as mitigation strategies; (iii) greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and their relation to regional population changes. Dr. Gaffin is also currently installing a new network of green and white rooftop monitoring and atmospheric research stations throughout the New York City area. Recent projects include sites in the Bronx, Morningside Heights, Queens and Brooklyn. This will provide a new network of observations for the city that will be useful for a number of issues including: distributed stormwater runoff control, atmospheric forecasts, modeling, energy demand and climate impacts. Dr. Gaffin taught the first courses offered by Columbia University on the New York City urban heat island in Spring 2005 and 2006. He was a lead author on the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set of emissions scenarios, known as the “SRES” scenarios. He is the author of many peer reviewed journal articles, and has participated in numerous media and public forums on climate change science and policy.