World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Earth Science
USA
2022

D-Index & Metrics

Earth Science

D-Index
144
Citations
86964
World Ranking
7
National Ranking
2

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2022 - Research.com Earth Science in United States Leader Award
  • 2005 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • 1981 - Fellow of American Geophysical Union (AGU)
  • 1979 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • 1975 - Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Overview

Peter Molnar was affiliated with the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States. Their research primarily focused on Environmental Science, with notable contributions in several subfields including Global and Planetary Change, Water Science and Technology, Atmospheric Science, Soil Science, and Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law.

Their work addressed key topics such as Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies, Cryospheric studies and observations, Soil erosion and sediment transport, Flood Risk Assessment and Management, Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes, Landslides and related hazards, and Climate variability and models.

Frequent co-authors in their research included Nadav Peleg, Brian W. McArdell, Paolo Burlando, Marius G. Floriancic, and Simone Fatichi.

Peter Molnar published regularly in several scientific venues, with multiple publications in:

  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
  • Earth Surface Dynamics
  • Hydrology and earth system sciences
  • Natural hazards and earth system sciences
  • Ecohydrology

Among their recent papers were:

  • "More green and less blue water in the Alps during warmer summers" (2020), published in Nature Climate Change
  • "Climate Change Impacts on Sediment Yield and Debris-Flow Activity in an Alpine Catchment" (2020), published in Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface
  • "Global warming accelerates soil heterotrophic respiration" (2023), published in Nature Communications
  • "Evaluating methods for debris-flow prediction based on rainfall in an Alpine catchment" (2021), published in Natural hazards and earth system sciences
  • "Rainfall seasonality and timing: implications for cereal crop production in Ethiopia" (2021), published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

Recognition of their scientific career included fellowships from several organizations:

  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), awarded in 2005
  • Fellow of American Geophysical Union (AGU), awarded in 1981
  • Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, awarded in 1979
  • Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, awarded in 1975

Best Publications

  • Cenozoic Tectonics of Asia: Effects of a Continental Collision: Features of recent continental tectonics in Asia can be interpreted as results of the India-Eurasia collision.

    Peter Molnar;Paul Tapponnier

  • Mantle dynamics, uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and the Indian Monsoon

    Peter Molnar;Philip England;Joseph Martinod

  • Continuous deformation of the Tibetan Plateau from global positioning system data

    Pei-Zhen Zhang;Zhengkang Shen;Min Wang;Weijun Gan

  • Late Cenozoic uplift of mountain ranges and global climate change: chicken or egg?

    Peter Molnar;Philip England

  • Active faulting and tectonics in China

    Paul Tapponnier;Peter Molnar

  • Focal depths of intracontinental and intraplate earthquakes and their implications for the thermal and mechanical properties of the lithosphere

    Wang-Ping Chen;Peter Molnar

  • Convective instability of a thickened boundary layer and its relevance for the thermal evolution of continental convergent belts

    G. A. Houseman;D. P. McKenzie;Peter Molnar

  • Slip-line field theory and large-scale continental tectonics

    Paul Tapponnier;Peter Molnar

  • Increased sedimentation rates and grain sizes 2-4 Myr ago due to the influence of climate change on erosion rates.

    Zhang Peizhen;Peter Molnar;Peter Molnar;William R. Downs

  • Active faulting and cenozoic tectonics of the Tien Shan, Mongolia, and Baykal Regions

    Paul Tapponnier;Peter Molnar

  • Changing climate both increases and decreases European river floods

    Günter Blöschl;Julia Hall;Alberto Viglione;Alberto Viglione;Rui A P Perdigão

  • Relative motion of the Nazca (Farallon) and South American Plates since Late Cretaceous time

    Federico Pardo-Casas;Peter Molnar

  • Distribution of stresses in the descending lithosphere from a global survey of focal‐mechanism solutions of mantle earthquakes

    Bryan Isacks;Peter Molnar

  • Tectonics of the Caribbean and Middle America Regions from Focal Mechanisms and Seismicity

    Peter Molnar;Lynn R Sykes

  • Active tectonics of Tibet

    Peter Molnar;Paul Tapponnier

  • Surface uplift, uplift of rocks, and exhumation of rocks

    Philip C. England;Peter Molnar

  • Changing climate shifts timing of European floods

    Günter Blöschl;Julia Hall;Juraj Parajka;Rui A. P. Perdigão

  • Numerical Modelling of Instantaneous Plate Tectonics

    J. B. Minster;T. H. Jordan;P. Molnar;E. Haines

  • Orographic controls on climate and paleoclimate of Asia: thermal and mechanical roles for the Tibetan Plateau.

    Peter Molnar;William R. Boos;David S. Battisti

  • Himalayan Seismic Hazard

    Roger Bilham;Vinod K. Gaur;Peter Molnar

Frequent Co-Authors

Paolo Burlando
Paolo Burlando ETH Zurich
Simone Fatichi
Simone Fatichi National University of Singapore
Balaji Rajagopalan
Balaji Rajagopalan University of Colorado Boulder
Philip England
Philip England University of Oxford
Brian W. McArdell
Brian W. McArdell Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Fritz Schlunegger
Fritz Schlunegger University of Bern
Stuart N. Lane
Stuart N. Lane University of Lausanne
Peizhen Zhang
Peizhen Zhang Sun Yat-sen University
Gregory A. Houseman
Gregory A. Houseman University of Leeds
Joann M. Stock
Joann M. Stock California Institute of Technology

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