Harry F. Lins

Who is Harry F. Lins?

Harry F. Lins is a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Since joining USGS in 1971, his work has spanned several Earth science disciplines, including coastal processes, surface water hydrology, and hydroclimatology. Although most of his career has been spent conducting research, he managed the USGS Global Change Hydrology Program from 1989 to 1997, and served as Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Hydrology and Water Resources Working Group for the First Assessment Report. In 1999, he and USGS colleague David Wolock developed "WaterWatch", the Nation’s first website depicting maps and graphs of water resources conditions in near real-time. Lins currently serves as President of the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Hydrology.

Since the early 1980s, Lins' research has focused principally on characterizing the surface water response to climate, with an emphasis on regional streamflow variability, long-term trends, and the statistical techniques appropriate for such analyses. Lins' most controversial research, which has not been fully embraced by the climate science community, suggests that the significance of climate trends may be greatly overstated because it does not consider the possibility that long-term persistence is a component of climatic variations.