Biography

Dr. Altaf Arain is a professor in the School of Geography and Earth Science at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is also the Director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change. He was the president of the Canadian Geophysical Union (CGU) - Biogeosciences Section from 2009-2012. Dr. Arain’s research interests focus on bio- and hydro-meteorology, hydrology, climatology, air pollution, land surface-atmosphere interactions and climate modeling. He has expertise in both micrometeorological measurements and land-surface atmosphere interaction modeling. Dr. Arain’s Turkey Point energy, water and carbon flux tower sites in an age-sequence (74, 39 and 11 year old) of pine forests and a deciduous (80-year old) forest in southern Ontario are part of global Fluxnet program. He developed the carbon and nitrogen coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CN-CLASS) and nitrogen modules for the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM-N+). CN-CLASS model development work was part of a multi-university collaborative modeling initiative known as the Canadian Global Coupled Carbon Climate Model, (CGC3M)) to develop a global coupled carbon climate model. Dr. Arain has been involved in interdisciplinary research initiatives to measure nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants and to investigate the effects of air pollution on human health in several urban areas of Canada. Meteorological and nitrogen dioxide data helped to improve land use regression models for health studies in urban settings. He has published more than 85 refereed journal papers.