Michael James Salinger (born 25 April 1947) is a New Zealand climate change researcher and teacher who has worked for a range of universities in his home country and around the world. He was a senior climate scientist for a Crown Research Institute, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), and President of the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He has received several awards and other honours for his work with climate change and is involved in researching and monitoring past and current climate trends. Within his area of specialist scientific knowledge, Salinger has co-authored and edited a range of reports, articles and books. He was involved in an employment dispute and elements of his theory and practice were at the centre of a case against NIWA.
Career
Salinger was a scientist at the University of Otago Medical School from 1972–1975. He then lectured in geography at Victoria University of Wellington, (1976–1979), and was a senior research associate at the University of East Anglia in England, (1980–1981). He worked for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand from 1982 until 1992, initially as the senior agricultural meteorologist, and later in the role of principal scientist, and from 1986 to 2010, was New Zealand's principal delegate to the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM). From 2006 to 2010, he served as its ninth president, and in 2018, won an award for his exceptional service.
Between 2004 and 2007, Salinger was an honorary associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland and within that timeframe, became a principal scientist for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). In 2011 he was an honorary research fellow, at the University of Tasmania, Australia, the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor, Woods Institute for the Environment, at Stanford University in 2012, and from February to March 2014, a visiting scholar, at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. At that time he was a Ernst Frohlich Fellow CSIRO Marine Sciences, Hobart In 2018 Salinger was a visiting professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, and from February – May 2019, a visiting scholar in the Department of Meteorology at The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA. Between August – December 2019 he served as a visiting professor at the Institute of Biometeorology, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, University of Florence, Rome, Italy.
Salinger was research associate for the Tasmanian Institute for Agriculture at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia in (2019–2020) and is currently the international climate change expert for the Climate Reference Group, Queenstown New Zealand-Lakes District Council. As of 2020, he has been adjunct research fellow at School of Geography, Environmental and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington,
Public policy positions
IPPC and NIWA Reports
A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) was prepared in 2018 following the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016. In the New Zealand news media, the report was discussed in terms of how it may impact the achievement of the goals in the Paris Agreement. During the discussion, Jim Salinger said the report showed the difference between the impacts of 1.5 °C and 2 °C is earth-shattering and as an example "coral reefs would decline by 70 to 90 per cent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas more than 99 per cent would be lost with two degrees". Salinger further said species loss and extinction are projected to be significantly lower at 1.5 °C of global warming compared to 2 °C. The NIWA Annual Climate Summary (2018), confirmed the concerns about the increase in temperature in New Zealand and Salinger noted that the NIWA Seasonal Climate Outlook foreshadowed increased temperatures.