SAN FRANCISCO, California (February 19, 2008) -- Dr. Margaret Leinen, Chief Science Officer of Climos, a company focused on exploring large mechanisms for mitigating climate change, and formerly the Assistant Director of Geosciences for the US National Science Foundation was elected the Chair-Elect for the AAAS Section on Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences today at the close of the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston. Leinen will hold this position until assuming the Chair after the next annual meeting in Chicago in 2009.

The current AAAS Chair of Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences is Dr. Anne Thompson, Professor of Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Thompson is an atmospheric scientist who atmospheric chemistry, remote sensing of ozone, and global change, including the simulation of future and pre-industrial troposphere.

Dr. Leinen left her position as the Director of Geosciences for the National Science Foundation in February of 2007 to become Climos' Chief Science Officer. At NSF she was responsible for the overall direction and funding of the US geosciences research program. She was also Vice Chair of the US Climate Change Science Program, a member of the US delegation for the 3rd assessment of the IPCC report, and head of the US delegation for the Interamerican Institute for Global Change Research--a western hemisphere treaty organization of 19 countries. Prior to her role at NSF she was Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Leinen is a PhD paleooceanographer and biogeochemist whose research focused in part on the role of iron in past climate cycles.

Drafting was led by Michael Shuster, Partner in the Intellectual Property Group and Co-Chair of the Life Sciences practice at Fenwick & West in San Francisco. "Protecting intellectual property involved in an ocean-based operation presented an interesting challenge. We employed a systems approach to connect activity at sea with Climos technology on land used to quantify, value, and market carbon credits generated by ocean fertilization activities. I believe that these aspects of the technology represent the critical path in the commercial application of ocean fertilization."

About Climos

Climos is a company dedicated to removing carbon from the atmosphere. Founded in California's Silicon Valley by entrepreneurs Dan Whaley and Richard Whilden, Climos scientific research is overseen by Dr. Margaret Leinen, former Assistant Director of Geosciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Climos is guided by a Scientific Advisory Board that includes some of the world's experts in ocean, earth and climate science.

About AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, "Triple A-S" (AAAS), is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. In addition to organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide.

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