Stephen Warren (glaciologist)

Stephen Warren (born September 20, 1945) is an American atmospheric scientist and glaciologist.^[1] He is a professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences and of earth and space Sciences at the University of Washington.^[2] He is known for his research on the interaction of solar radiation with snow, ice, and clouds, and for field studies in the Arctic and Antarctic.^[3] He has been named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union^[4], the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[5]

Warren was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Indiana.^[6] He earned a B.A. in chemistry, summa cum laude, from Cornell University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 1973.^[7] After graduate school he conducted postdoctoral research in protein crystallography at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg and at Brandeis University.^[6]

Warren shifted from biophysics to atmospheric science in 1978, working as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and later at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado.^[7] In 1982 he joined the faculty of the University of Washington, where he has remained; he is now professor emeritus.^[8] He also served as a member of the University of Washington’s Astrobiology Program, as well as the Quaternary Research Center.^[9]

He held visiting positions at the Australian Antarctic Division^[10], the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre at the University of Tasmania, the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.^[6] In 1992, he was appointed Station Science Leader at the South Pole Station during a year-long Antarctic expedition.^[8]

Warren’s work focuses on the optical properties of snow and ice, the climatic effects of clouds, and cryosphere–atmosphere interactions.^[11]

He has contributed to understanding the role of light-absorbing impurities in snow^[12], the climatic significance of snow albedo^[13], and the processes governing sea ice and glacier ice. His studies have also extended to paleoclimate, including the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis.^[14]

Warren conducted fieldwork across Antarctica, Greenland, the Southern Ocean, Siberia, Svalbard, China, Canada, and Alaska.^[15]

In Antarctica, he participated in expeditions to the South Pole, Vostok Station, Dome C, and the Transantarctic Mountains.^[8] In 2001 the U.S. Board on Geographic Names designated Warren Ridge in Antarctica in his honor.^[16]

His research concerned the origin of green icebergs, which he first studied in the late 1980s.^[17] His investigations suggested that iron oxides incorporated into marine ice beneath ice shelves are responsible for the unusual coloration, with implications for nutrient delivery to ocean ecosystems.^[18]