The Orcas Island Public Library presents Dr. Cliff Mass, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington on Wednesday, July 23 at 5:30 p.m. on the Orcas Center’s Main Stage. This program is free.

“Global warming is a serious problem that required immediate attention, but there are two serious problems:  (1) The media and politicians are not giving an accurate description of the current and future impacts of increasing greenhouse gases and (2) mankind is not doing enough to mitigate the future warming,” says Mass.

This talk will discuss these issues and examine how they influence each other. Mass received his bachelor of science in physics in 1974 from Cornell University, where he worked on Earth and Martian atmospheric modeling with the late Carl Sagan.

After receiving his doctorate in atmospheric sciences in 1978 from the University of Washington, he was an assistant professor at the University of Maryland from 1978 to 1981, and subsequently moved to the University of Washington where he is currently a professor of atmospheric sciences.

His specialties are weather prediction, numerical modeling, the influence of topography on weather systems, the structure and evolution of weather systems, and the weather of the western U.S. He is currently the lead scientist for the Northwest Modeling Consortium, a group of local, state, and Federal agencies building a cutting-edge weather prediction capacity for the region.