Simon Donner
Research Area
Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002, PhD
Duke University, MEM
McMaster University, BA Sc
About
I am an interdisciplinary climate scientist who aims to address societally-relevant questions surrounding climate change.
Most of my research is at the intersection of physical climate science, marine science and public policy. My current areas of focus are patterns of ocean warming and sea-level rise; climate change adaptation in the developing world, especially in coastal areas; and climate change and coral reefs. This research involves a combination of numerical modelling, large-scale geospatial analysis, and both scientific and interview-based field work in the south and central Pacific.
I take my privileged position as a professor seriously, and spend a lot of my time translating the science of climate change to different audiences in hopes of helping people make better decisions about the future.
Teaching
Publications
2022
LI, X., and S.D. DONNER. 2022. Lengthening of warm periods increased the intensity of warm-season marine heatwaves over the past four decades. Climate Dynamics: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06227-y
2021
Wynes, C.S., J. Kotcher, and S.D. Donner. 2021. Can citizen pressure influence politicians’ communication about climate change? Results from a field experiment. Climatic Change 168 (6). doi: 10.1007/s10584-021-03215-9
Findlater, K., S. Webber, M. Kandlikar, and S.D. Donner. 2021. Climate services promise better decisions but mainly focus on better data. Nature Climate Change 11: 731-737. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01125-3
Cannon, S.E., E. Aram, T. Beiateuea, A. Kiareti, M. Peter, and S.D. Donner. 2021. Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors. PLoS-One 16(8). doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255304
Liang, K.E., K. Dawson, M. Stojan, D.G. Clark, C.S. Wynes, AND S.D. Donner. 2021. A Carbon Footprint Study of the Medical Residency Interview Tour in Canadian Healthcare. Medical Teacher 43(11): 1302-1308. doi: 10.1080/0142159X.2021.1944612
Gonzalez-Espinosa, P.C., and S.D. Donner. 2021. Cloudiness reduces the bleaching response of coral reefs exposed to heat stress. Global Change Biology 27(15): 3474-3486. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15676
Logan, C., J. Dunne, J.S. Ryan, M.L. Baskett, and S.D. Donner. 2021. Quantifying global potential for coral evolutionary response to climate change. Nature Climate Change, 11: 537–542. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01037-2
2019
FINDLATER, K. M., SATTERFIELD, T., KANDLIKAR, M. and DONNER, S. D. 2019 ‘Weather and climate variability may be poor proxies for climate change in farmer risk perceptions’ Weather, Climate, and Society 11(4), 697-711 https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0040.1
CANNON, S. E., DONNER, S. D., FENNER, D. and BEGER, M. 2019 ‘The relationship between macro algae taxa and human disturbance on central Pacific coral reefs’ Marine Pollution Bulletin 145(August 2019), 161-173 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.05.024
WYNES, S., DONNER, S. D., TANNASON, S. and NABORS, N. 2019 ‘Academic air travel has a limited influence on professional success’ Journal of Cleaner Production 226(July 2019), 959-967 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.109
MEHRABI, Z., DONNER, S. D., RIOS, P., GUHA-SAPIR, D., ROWHANI, P., KANDLIKAR, M. and RAMANKUTTY, N. 2019 ‘Can we sustain success in reducing deaths to extreme weather in a hotter world?’ World Development Perspectives 14(June 2019), 100107 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2019.02.018
DONNER, S. D. and CARILLI, J. 2019 ‘Resilience of Central Pacific coral reefs subject to frequent heat stress and human disturbance’ Scientific Reports 9(3484)
TSURUTA, K., HASSAN, M. A., DONNER, S. D. and ALILA, Y. 2019 ‘Modelling the effects of climatic and hydrological regime changes on the sediment dynamics of the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, Canada’ Hydrological Processes 33(2), 244-260 https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13321
2018
TSURUTA, K., HASSAN, M. A., DONNER, S. D. and ALILA, Y. 2018 ‘Development and Application of a Large‐Scale, Physically Based, Distributed Suspended Sediment Transport Model on the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, Canada’ JGR Earth Surface 123(10), 2481-2508 https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JF004578
WYNES, S., NICHOLAS, K. A., ZHAO, J. and DONNER, S. D. 2018 ‘Measuring what works: quantifying greenhouse gas emission reductions of behavioural interventions to reduce driving, meat consumption, and household energy use’ Environmental Research Letters 13(11), 113002 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae5d7
FINDLATER, K. M., SATTERFIELD, T., KANDLIKAR, M. and DONNER, S. D. 2018 ‘Six languages for a risky climate: how farmers react to weather and climate change’ Climatic Change 148(4), 451-465 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2217-z#citeas
FINDLATER, K. M., DONNER, S. D., SATTERFIELD, T. and KANDLIKAR, M. 2018 ‘Integration anxiety: The cognitive isolation of climate change’ Global Environmental Change 50, 178-189 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.02.010
2017
HASSAN, M. A., DONNER, S. D., CHURCH, M. A., ROBERGE, L., MORE, M., LEACH, J., and ALI, F. 2017 ‘What are the sources of sediment into the Mississippi River?’ Geophysical Research Letters 44, 8919-8924 doi: 10.1002/2017GL074046
DONNER, S. D., RICKBEIL, G. J. M., and HERON, S. F. 2017 ‘A new, high-resolution global mass coral bleaching database’ PLoS-One 12(4), e0175490
DONNER, S. D. 2017 ‘Publicity or Perish: Finding the balance in science communication’ Biogeochemistry DOI 10.1007/s10533-017-0344-7
DONNER, S. D. 2017 ‘Risk and Responsibility in Public Engagement by Climate Scientists: Reconsidering Advocacy During the Trump Era’ Environmental Communication 1–4, DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2017.1291101
MOTEW, M., CHEN, X., BOOTH, E. G., CARPENTER, S. R., PINKAS, P., ZIPPER, S. C., LOHEIDE II, S. P., DONNER, S. D. et al. 2017 ‘The Influence of Legacy P on Lake Water Quality in a Midwestern Agricultural Watershed’ Ecosystems 1–15 DOI:10.1007/s10021-017-0125-0
WEBBER, S. and DONNER, S. D. 2017 ‘Climate service warnings: cautions about commercializing climate science for adaptation in the developing world’ WIREs Climate Change 8(1) DOI: 10.1002/wcc.424