Claire L. Parkinson

Claire Lucille Parkinson (born March 12, 1948) is an American Earth scientist and climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Education Parkinson has a B.A. in mathematics from Wellesley College, where she was elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, and a Ph.D. in geography/climatology from Ohio State University.

Career Parkinson is a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where she works with the Earth Observing System. Parkinson has developed a computer model of sea ice, and she has done field work in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Her research emphasis has been on polar sea ice and its connections to the rest of the climate system and to climate change, with a particular emphasis on satellite remote sensing. This work has involved satellite data set generation and analysis, including the determination of decreases in Arctic sea ice coverage since the 1970s and examination of their regional and interannual variabilities and impacts, plus the quantification and analysis of the very different time series of sea ice changes in the Antarctic. Dr. Parkinson is the Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite mission, which launched in May 2002 and continues to transmit data on many atmospheric, ocean, land, and ice variables. The Aqua data have been used in thousands of research publications by scientists worldwide and in numerous practical applications, including weather forecasting and forest fire detection.

Outreach Parkinson has done considerable outreach to children and the general public, serving as the sole science advisor to the photographic exhibit “Antarctica On Thin Ice” that opened at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on December 17, 2007.