Chris Fletcher (He/Him)

Chris Fletcher joined GEM in 2010 and has served as department chair since 2023. His research program uses computer models and satellite observations of the global climate system to better understand global and regional climate variability and change on timescales from seasons to centuries. His primary research interest is in leveraging modern observational and data science techniques to improve the Earth system models we rely on for quantitative projections of future climate. These models are incredibly complex pieces of software and run on some of the world's most powerful supercomputers. As such, group members develop skills in scientific computing, as well as physical climatology, and analysis of big data.

To schedule a meeting with me, please visit https://calendly.com/cgf/meet

• Global climate variability and change

• Climate modelling and dynamics

• Using machine-learning to improve the efficiency of Earth System Modelling

• Satellite Earth observation and monitoring

• Land surface processes and hydrologic change

• Cold regions

• Surface albedo feedback

• 2000 B.Sc. Physical Geography, University of Manchester, UK

• 2001 M.Sc. Applied Meteorology, University of Reading, UK

• 2005 Ph.D., Space and Climate Physics, University College London, UK

• 2018 -- 2022: Associate Chair, Graduate Studies

• 2023 -- present: Department Chair

• Canadian Association of Geographers

• Soltani, Mohsen, Christopher G. Fletcher, Andre Erler, Melissa I. Bunn, and Hazen A. J. Russell (2026) Assessment of Snow Water Equivalent Characteristics in Time and Space over the Mackenzie River Basin.” Canadian Water Resources Journal, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/07011784.2026.2616002.

• Langille, J. and 38 coauthors, (2025), The High-altitude Aerosols, Water vapour and Clouds mission: concept, scientific objectives and data products, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, American Meteorological Society.

• Soltani, M., C. G. Fletcher, A. Mofidi, J. Arnault, P. Laux and H. Kunstmann (2025), Exceptionally rare tropopause folding caused the Sinai’s dragon storm: a forensic meteorological analysis, Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, Volume 137, Issue 2, Springer.

• Kanda N., and C. G. Fletcher (2025), Evaluating a hierarchy of bias correction methods for ERA5-Land SWE across Canada, Environmental Research Communications.

• Herrington, T.C.; Fletcher, C.G. and Kropp, H. (2024), Validation of pan-Arctic soil temperatures in modern reanalysis and data assimilation systems, The Cryosphere, Volume 18, Issue 4, 1835-1861.

• King, F., C. Pettersen, C. G. Fletcher, and A. Geiss (2024), Development of a Full-Scale Connected U-Net for Reflectivity Inpainting in Spaceborne Radar Blind Zones, Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems, Volume 3, Issue 2.

• Virgin, J.G. and Fletcher, C.G. (2024), Declining Geoengineering Efficacy Caused by Cloud Feedbacks in Transient Solar Dimming Experiments, Journal of Climate, Volume 37, Issue 1, 113-128.

• Sabetghadam, S., C. G. Fletcher and A. Erler (2024), The importance of model horizontal resolution for improved estimation of Snow Water Equivalent in a mountainous region of Western Canada, EGUsphere, 1-19.

• Dylewsky, Daniel and Lenton, Timothy M. and Scheffer, Marten and BuryThomas M. and Fletcher, Christopher G. and Anand, Madhur and Bauch, Chris T. (2023), Universal early warning signals of phase transitions in climate systems, JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE, Volume 20, Issue 201.

• *King, Fraser and Kelly, Richard and Fletcher, Christopher G. (2023), New opportunities for low-cost LiDAR-derived snow depth estimates from a consumer drone-mounted smartphone, COLD REGIONS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Volume 207.

• *King, Fraser and Kelly, Richard and Fletcher, Christopher G. (2022), Evaluation of LiDAR-Derived Snow Depth Estimates From the iPhone 12 Pro, IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, Volume 19.

• *King, Fraser and Duffy, George and Milani, Lisa and Fletcher Christopher G. and Pettersen, Claire and Ebell, Kerstin (2022), DeepPrecip: a deep neural network for precipitation retrievals, ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES, Volume 15, Issue 20, 6035-6050.

• *Daniel, Dagnachew and Ayenew, Tenalem and Fletcher, Christopher G. and Duraisamy, Radakrishnan and Jothimani, Muralitharan (2022), Numerical groundwater flow modelling under changing climate in Abaya-Chamo lakes basin, Rift Valley, Southern Ethiopia, MODELING EARTH SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENT, Volume 8, Issue 3, 3985-3999.

• *Virgin, J. G. and Fletcher, C. G. (2022), On the Linearity of External Forcing Response in Solar Geoengineering Experiments, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Volume 49, Issue 15.

• Fletcher, Christopher G. and McNally, William and *Virgin, John G. and *King, Fraser (2022), Toward Efficient Calibration of Higher-Resolution Earth System Models, JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN MODELING EARTH SYSTEMS, Volume 14, Issue 7.

• Kropp, Heather and Loranty, Michael M. and Rutter, Nick and Fletcher Christopher G. and Derksen, Chris and Mudryk, Lawrence and *Todt, Markus (2022), Are vegetation influences on Arctic-boreal snow melt rates detectable across the Northern Hemisphere?, ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Volume 17, Issue 10.

• *Chou, Chih-Chun and Kushner, Paul J. and Laroche, Stephane and Mariani Zen and Rodriguez, Peter and Melo, Stella and Fletcher, Christopher G. (2022), Validation of the Aeolus Level-2B wind product over Northern Canada and the Arctic, ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES, Volume 15, Issue 15, 4443-4461.

• *King, Fraser and Duffy, George and Fletcher, Christopher G. (2022), A Centimeter-Wavelength Snowfall Retrieval Algorithm Using Machine Learning, JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY, Volume 61, Issue 8, 1029-1039.

• Thackeray, Chad W. and Hall, Alex and Zelinka, Mark D. and Fletcher Christopher G. (2021), Assessing Prior Emergent Constraints on Surface Albedo Feedback in CMIP6, JOURNAL OF CLIMATE, Volume 34, Issue 10, 3889-3905.

• *Kodamana, Rithwik and Fletcher, Christopher G. (2021), Validation of CloudSat-CPR Derived Precipitation Occurrence and Phase Estimates across Canada, ATMOSPHERE, Volume 12, Issue 3.