The McMaster University, Climate Change Research Program Leader Dr. Altaf Arain is actively involved in research related measurement and modeling of the energy, water and carbon exchanges above forests and other natural surfaces. He graduated from the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA. His research interests include all aspects of land surface-atmosphere interactions at local, regional and global scales, including micrometeorological field measurements, evaporation process, boundary layer meteorology, hydrology, global change, environmental quality and ecosystem and climate change modeling. He has been involved to study carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor and other meteorological variables above boreal deciduous and conifer forests under the Boreal Ecosystem Research and Monitoring Sites (BERMS) program. Recently, Dr. Arain has initiated a long-term CO2 and water vapour flux measurement program over a chronosequence of afforested (planted) conifer forests in Southern Ontario, which is pioneering.

Dr Arain has been involved in regional and global atmospheric circulation model studies exploring the feasibility of using remote sensing data for improving their predictive capabilities and resolving with-grid land surface heterogeneity problems. He has been working on developing the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) through Climate Research Network of Meteorological Services of Canada. He is a co-investigator in the Ontario Flux Station and modeling components of the Fluxnet-Canada Program and Canadian Global Coupled Carbon Climate Model initiative. Coupled regional and global climate models are being developed under these projects to study impact of increased greenhouse gases concentrations on the Earth’s climate. Dr. Arain is also involved in measuring and modeling air pollutants, particularly nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and Ozone (O3) over Toronto-Hamilton intra-urban regions. Dr. Arain publications are listed in Publications page of this web site.