For the Gazette-Times

CORVALLIS - Oregon State University has named four candidates for director of the Climate Change Research Institute created by the legislature in 2007.

Each is scheduled to visit the campus and give a public seminar, with the first set for this afternoon. The college announced the finalists over the holiday weekend.

The candidates:

* David R. Easterling, chief of the Scientific Services Division of the National Climactic Data Center.

* David S. Gutzler, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of New Mexico.

* Philip W. Mote, state climatologist for Washington and a professor at the University of Washington.

* Daniel M. White, director of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy and a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"Climate change issues continue to present extraordinary challenges to policy-makers as well as the scientific community," Mark Abbott, dean of the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, said in a statement. "All of these candidates have a great deal of experience in addressing these challenges and are well-positioned to help Oregon plan its future."

The schedule for the seminars, all to be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Burt Hall 193:

Today - Mote: "Exploring the Impacts of Climate Change in the Northwest"

Sept. 25 - Gutzler: "Analyzing and Discussing Climate Change Lessons from the Southwest"

Oct. 6 - White: "Climate Change Adaptation: An Opportunity Not to be Missed"

Oct. 8 - Easterling: "Observed and Projected Changes in Climate Extremes"

Mote has been a research scientist with the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group since 1998. He previously worked for NorthWest Research Associates studying the dynamics of the stratosphere, and was on the faculty of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He was a lead author on an assessment report that was an integral part of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Gutzler has been at the University of New Mexico since 1995. He previously worked as a physicist with NOAA's Aeronomy Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.; as senior staff scientist with Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.; and as a scientific programmer with the NASA Goddard Laboratory.

White is the director of the Institute of Northern Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he has been since 1995. He is a consultant to the Alaska governor's task force on climate change, as well as to state commissions and legislators.

Easterling has been with the National Climactic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., since 1990. He directs the Applied Research Center for NOAA's Climate Program Office, and is the science lead for the NOAA Climate Reference Network. Easterling also was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The institute is intended to facilitate research by Oregon university faculty on climate change and its effects in Oregon. It also will provide climate change information to the public and provide technical assistance to local governments.

University officials have said the institute will not replace the Oregon Climate Service, which supplies weather information and whose director, George Taylor, retired last spring.