John David Woods, CBE (born 1939) is a British oceanographer.[1]
He studied physics at Imperial College, London (1958–66), after which he was appointed principal research fellow at the Meteorological Office (1966–72), while leading the RN Operation Thermocline in which he pioneered underwater flow visualisation. Later he joined NERC as Director of Marine and Atmospheric Science (1986-1994), where he created the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton. He held professorships at Southampton University (1972–77), Kiel University (1977-86) and Imperial College London (1994-), carrying out research into the seasonal boundary layer of the ocean and plankton ecosystem models, and modelling global container freight.[1]
Woods has served on a number of international project committees, including GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Programme), WCRP (World Climate Research Programme0, IGBP (International GeoSphere-Biosphere Programme), EuroGOOS (European Global Ocean Observing System). He was co-chairman of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment. He was a lead author of the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organisation which was later awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Al Gore.[1]
He is now (2015) Emeritus Professor of Oceanography & Complex Systems in the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College London. He is Adjunct Fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford (1994-), and Emeritus Researcher of the CNR (Italian National Research Council).