JONATHAN OVERPECK is a climate scientist and founding co-director of the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment, as well as Professor of Geosciences and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. He has published over 140 papers in climate and the environmental sciences, and recently served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Nobel Prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment (2007). Overpeck has also been awarded the US Department of Commerce Bronze and Gold Medals, as well as the Walter Orr Roberts award of the American Meteorological Society, for his interdisciplinary research. He has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, was the 2005 American Geophysical Union Bjerknes Lecturer, and shared the 2008 NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Outstanding Scientific Paper Award. Overpeck has active research programs on four continents, including Africa (West Africa), Asia (Tibet), South America (Peru and Ecuador) and North America (Arctic and Southwest). He is the principal investigator of the Climate Assessment for The Southwest (CLIMAS), one of several NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) programs, as well as the principal investigator of the recently announced US Department of Interior Southwest Climate Science Center. Overpeck has testified before Congress multiple times, and has served on many national and international science committees, including several of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), currently serves on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science magazine, and is a founding co-editor of The Edge book series on Environmental Science, Law and Policy, a publication of the University of Arizona Press.