Ghassem R. Asrar is currently the Director of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to this position, he served as the Deputy Administrator for Natural Resources and Agricultural Systems with Agricultural Research Service (ARS), of the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 2006–2008, after 20 years of service with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Ghassem served as the chief scientist for the Earth Observing System in the Office of Earth Science at NASA headquarters prior to being named the Associate Administrator for Earth Science in 1998. Ghassem is the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Rank Executive Award (2002) and is an elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (2001). He has received numerous awards and honors, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Goddard Memorial Lecture Medal, NASA Distinguished Leadership Medal and the Space Systems Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Ghassem earned graduate degrees in civil engineering and environmental physics from Michigan State University, United States of America.
He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific and technical papers, primarily in the fields of biosphere and atmosphere studies, and has edited several reference books on remote sensing.

Carlos A Nobre is Chairperson of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Scientific Committee, Director of the Center for Earth System Science and Senior Scientist at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) of Brazil. He is also Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Research Network on Global Climate Change and Scientific Director of the National Institute for Climate Change Research, Brazil. From 1991 to 2003, he was Director of the Brazilian Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies. From 1996 to 2002, he was program scientist for the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia. Carlos is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). His research interests are in tropical meteorology, climate modeling, global environmental change and biosphere-atmosphere interactions in Amazonia. Carlos has authored and coauthored more than 130 scientific articles, books and book chapters.

Antonio J. Busalacchi received his Ph.D. degree in oceanography from Florida State University in 1982. He has studied tropical ocean circulation and its role in the coupled climate system. His interests include the study of climate variability and prediction, tropical ocean modeling, ocean remote sensing, and data assimilation. His research in these areas has supported a range of international and national research programs dealing with global change and climate, particularly as affected by the oceans.
From 1989-1996 he served on the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) TOGA Advisory Panel and for 1991-1993 he was a member of the NAS/NRC Panel on Ocean Atmosphere Observations Supporting Short-Term Climate Predictions. From 1999-2006 he served as Co-Chairman of the Scientific Steering Group for the World Climate Research Programme on Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR). Presently, he serves as Chairman of the Joint Scientific Committee for the World Climate Research Programme and Chairman of the NAS/NRC Board on Atmosphereic Sciences and Climate. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), American Geophysical Union, and in 2006 was selected by the AMS to be the Walter Orr Roberts Interdisciplinary Science Lecturer.

Prof. Dr. Rik Leemans (1957) heads the Environmental Systems Analysis group (www.esa.wur.nl) of Wageningen University, directs the WIMEK graduate school and chairs the Earth System Science Partnership (www.essp.org). He further contributes to several (inter)national committees concerned with various aspects of global change. He currently leads several multidisciplinary projects to develop integrated assessment models for global biodiversity and local/regional ecosystem vulnerability. He was involved in the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and co-chaired the Response Option Working group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
His early studies at Uppsala University (Sweden) and the International Institute of Applied System Analyses (IIASA, Austria) emphasised modelling the structure and dynamics of boreal forests. During the nineties, he led the development of integrated earth system model, IMAGE-2 at the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). His main research interests concern biodiversity, vegetation dynamics, land-use change, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem services, vulnerability and sustainable development.
Dr. Leemans has published many papers on a wide range of topics, is member of editorial boards of scientific journals such as Climatic Change, Carbon Balance and Management and Solutions and is editor in-chief of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

John Mitchell is Director of Climate Science at the United Kingdom MetOffice and a visiting Professor at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. He received a PhD in Theoretical Physics from The Queen's University, Belfast, United Kingdom in 1973. He joined the Meteorological Office and, in 1978, took charge of the Climate Change group in what is now the MetOffice's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. His main specialty is the study of the climatic effects of increases in greenhouse gases and related pollutants.

He has been a lead author in three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I Assessment Reports. He has shared the Norbert Gerbier-Mumm Award twice and ahd been awarded the Hans Oeschger medal of the European Geophysical Union. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.