Timothy M. Lenton

The 2006 Outstanding Young Scientist Award is awarded to Timothy M. Lenton for an original and new systems perspective, based on biogeosciences, on the history of our planet.

Timothy M. Lenton has been at the forefront of the research that considers the Earth, including its climate and biological life, as a single very strongly coupled system. He has developed the Gaia theory of James Lovelock, often much criticised by evolutionary biologists, and reconciled it with the theory of natural selection. This work has led to a new, systems perspective on the history of our planet. He has developed a range of relatively simple models that capture aspects of the behaviour of the Earth system on various long time-scales. He is currently adapting one of these models to the latest computer grid technology so that it can be used in major new projects on variability and change in the past and in the future.