William Richard Peltier

William Richard Peltier, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc) (born 1943), is a university professor of physics at the University of Toronto. He is director of the Centre for Global Change Science , principal investigator of the Polar Climate Stability Network , and the Scientific Director of Canada's largest supercomputer centre, SciNet . He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the American Geophysical Union.

His research interests include: atmospheric and oceanic waves and turbulence, geophysical fluid dynamics, physics of the planetary interior, and planetary climate.

He is notable for his involvement in global glacial reconstructions from the last glacial maximum to present. He has been a major (or the primary) contributor to the global reconstructions ICE-3G,^[1] ICE-4G,^[2] ICE-5G (VM2),^[3] and the upcoming ICE-6G (VM5) (in press). These models are important for the quantification of post-glacial rebound and late Pleistocene to Holocene variations in sea level.

Education

• 1967 B.Sc., University of British Columbia
• 1969 M.Sc. in Physics, University of Toronto
• 1971 Ph.D. in Physics, University of Toronto

Teaching appointments

• 1971-72 Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
• 1973-74 Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
• 1974-77 Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
• 1978 Visiting Professor, Geophysics and Space Physics, U.C.L.A.
• 1978-79 Steacie Fellowship Leave, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
• 1977-79 Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
• 1979-93 Full Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
• 1987-88 Guggenheim Fellowship Leave, DAMTP and Bullard Laboratories, Cambridge University, U.K.
• 1993- University Professor, University of Toronto
• 2002-2003 Sabbatical Leave, Professeur Invité, Institute de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris VII
• 2004 Professor Invité, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris VII
• 2005–present Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo

Honours and awards

• Distinguished Lecturer of the Canadian Geophysical Union, 1999–2000
• Elected as Foreign Member to Fellowship in the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,^[4] 2004
• Bancroft Award of the Royal Society of Canada, 2004
• J. Tuzo Wilson Medal of the Canadian Geophysical Union, 2004
• Vetlesen Prize, 2004
• Leiv Erikson Fellow, Norwegian Research Council, Bjerknes Institute for Climate Research, Univ. of Bergen, 2006
• Miroslaw Romanowski Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, 2006
• Milutin Milankovic Medal of the European Geosciences Union, 2008 web announcement
• Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science of The Franklin Institute, 2010

See also

• List of geophysicists

References

1. Tushingham, A. M.; Peltier, W. R. (1991). "Ice-3G: A New Global Model of Late Pleistocene Deglaciation Based Upon Geophysical Predictions of Post-Glacial Relative Sea Level Change". Journal of Geophysical Research 96: 4497. Bibcode:1991JGR....96.4497T. doi:10.1029/90JB01583.
2. Peltier, W. R. (1994). "Ice Age Paleotopography". Science 265 (5169): 195–201. Bibcode:1994Sci...265..195P. doi:10.1126/science.265.5169.195. PMID 17750657.
3. Peltier, W.R. (2004). "Global glacial isostasy and the surface of the ice-age Earth: the ICE-5G (VM2) Model and GRACE". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 32: 111. Bibcode:2004AREPS..32..111P. doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.32.082503.144359.
4. "Gruppe 2: Fysikkfag (herunder astronomi, fysikk og geofysikk)" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 7 October 2010.

External links

• Home page of Dr. Peltier
• University Professor page for Dr. Peltier
• Science Watch #5 most cited in geosciences, 1991-2001
• March 27, 2007 Toronto Star article "Reassessing the gravity of the situation"