Mark Dowell

Mark Dowell is Senior Scientific Officer and Project Leader for Scientific and Technical Support to the Copernicus Programme at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. His current efforts include incentivizing a scientifically sound and traceable uptake of Copernicus products and Services in European Policy and in the context of International commitments and is a co-chair of the Task Force for the proposed Copernicus Anthropogenic CO2 emission initiative. Mark has a Ph.D. in Oceanography and Earth Science from the University of Southampton (UK) in 1998. Following his thesis, he worked as Research Faculty in the Institute for Earth Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire (USA). Mark returned to work at the JRC as a Research Scientist in 2004 and he became Project Leader 2007. He has been engaged for many years with issues at the international level on Earth Observation, firstly as co-lead of a Virtual Constellation in CEOS then as the first Chair on the Working Group on Climate, in this context he also led the initiative established between CEOS, CGMS and WMO on the definition of a global Climate Monitoring Architecture, and currently leads CEOS activities on the CEOS Carbon Strategy and the Greenhouse Gas monitoring Task Team.
In GEO, Mark was involved in some of the inception discussions for the Blue Planet and Aquawatch, has been involved, on a continuous basis in the discussions on Climate aspects of GEO through the Systematic Observation contribution (GCOS, C3S) as a member – for the EuropeanCommission - of the Paris Agreement Subgroup and as a member of the Steering Group for the GEO Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Initiative. He has also contributed, on a systematic basis to discussions with GEO from a Space Agency (CEOS) perspective. Since 2020, Mark is a Co-chair of the GEO Climate Change Working Group.