[Prof. Alexander Baklanov]

Prof. Baklanov is a Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and during last 10 years worked in the Science and Innovation department of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He is a member (Academician) of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences (IEAS, since 2011) and the Academia Europaea (since 2018), editor-in-chief of the Urban Climate journal (since 2011). He led several international, Nordic, and EU research projects on urban climate and environmental risk (e.g. ArcticRISK, NordRisk, FUMAPEX, MEGAPOLI, EnviroRISKS, EuMetChem, EnviroHIRLAM, PEEX). He has more than 30 years of experience in environmental and atmospheric research, in particular in developing a new generation of online coupled meteorology-chemistry models, especially for urban applications. He has published about 400 scientific publications, including 14 books and almost 200 peer-reviewed papers. He was the WMO focal point for the WMO Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS) activities and for the UN Coalition for Combating SDS, one of the developers of the WMO methodology for the Integrated Urban Hydrometeorological, Climate and Environmental Systems for smart and sustainable cities.

[Prof. Gregory R. Carmichael]

Prof. Carmichael is the University of Iowa’s Karl Kammermeyer Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. He serves as the chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He is a leader in the development and application of chemical transport models at scales ranging from local to global. He has over 280 journal publications. The majority of his recent papers deal with the development and application of chemical transport models (CTM) to studies in regional atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and climate. These research activities include the development of comprehensive air quality models and their application to regional and international air pollution problems. His studies have led to a deeper understanding of the importance of long-range transport of pollutants within Asia and across the Pacific. His work has also explored the importance of dust on atmospheric chemistry, and this work has helped to stimulate laboratory as well as large-scale field experiments. His research has involved the development of innovative modeling tools, including techniques to optimally integrate measurements and models via formal chemical data assimilation.

[Prof. Aiguo Dai]

Dr. Dai is a Distinguished Professor of the Department of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA. He is an internationally renowned climate scientist with a focus on climate variability and change, Arctic climate, the global water cycle, hydroclimate, drought, the diurnal cycle, and climate data analysis. With more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, he has received 63,000-plus citations with an H-index of 91. He is one of the world’s top 1% Highly Cited Researchers. He served as the Chair of the Climate Variability and Change Committee and Editor of the Journal of Climate of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), and he is an AMS Fellow. He is currently working on the causes and impacts of Arctic rapid warming and sea-ice loss; changes in atmospheric thermodynamic conditions under global warming; the role of internal variability and external forcing in historical climate changes; and historical and future changes in precipitation, drought, and other hydroclimate fields.

[Dr. Rajesh Kumar]

Dr. Kumar is a project scientist in the National Security Applications Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado, USA. He is also a founder and co-chair of the international MAP-AQ (Monitoring, Analysis, and Prediction of Air Quality) project affiliated with the WMO and IGAC. He is a recognized expert on a range of air quality topics including analysis of in-situ and satellite products, emission estimates, source attribution, aerosol and dust modeling, chemistry climate simulations, air quality forecasting, and chemical data assimilation. He synergistically integrates ground- and satellite-based air quality monitoring with atmospheric composition and modeling capabilities to address a number of air quality issues including transport and transformation of air pollution, the relative importance of local and foreign emissions, deterministic and probabilistic air quality predictions, aerosol-climate interactions, heterogeneous atmospheric chemistry, chemistry-climate interactions, projection of future air quality, and impact of air quality for public health and food security.

[Prof. Jürg Luterbacher]

Dr. Luterbacher is a Professor for Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change and former Director of the Department of Geography and received his PhD from the University of Bern, Switzerland. From 2020 to 2024 he served as the Director of Science and Innovation and Chief Scientist at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He is an elected member of the Scientific Advisory Board appointed by UN Secretary-General Guterres and a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature / Mainz, Germany. He has demonstrated leadership and excellence in a broad spectrum of climate science and contributed significantly to the holistic Climate-Earth System approach. He co-developed and implemented the PAGES research strategy on the past climate for Europe/Mediterranean and Asia covering the past 2000 years. He served as a High-Level Advisory within the OECD Group on Losses and Damages from Climate Change on Earth Observations for Climate Change Impacts on World Heritage Cities / UN Flexible Mechanism. He was the Lead author in chapter 5 'Information from Paleoclimate Archives' of the 5th IPCC Assessment Report. His research has been presented in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He has repeatedly received recognition as the Thompson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Geosciences.