Professor Gerry Jones was born in the village of Llandybie in Carmarthenshire, Wales, in 1936. He attended the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and graduated (BSc) in 1957. In 1958 he taught chemistry at the Grammar School in Presteigne, Wales. In the autumn of that year, he emigrated to Canada where he commenced post-graduate studies in the chemistry department of Queen’s. He graduated after studies on the conformation of monosaccharide derivatives. During the period of 1964 to 1971 he pursued various applied and fundamental studies as a research officer at the Government of Canada’s Food and Drug Directorate, Ottawa (1964–1967); and as a research scientist at the Pulp and Paper Research Institute (PPRIC), Pointe Claire, an affiliation of McGill University, the Government of Canada, and Canadian Pulp and Paper Associated Companies, in Montreal (1967–1971). In 1971 he was appointed professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Université du Québec, Québec City, (1971–1997), and subsequent to retirement, as honorary professor (1997–2007). He served as honorary professor in the Institute of Geography & Earth Sciences of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (2001–2006).
Professor Jones’ research interests knew few bounds, but focussed (!) on the holistic study of cryospheric ecosystems, from microenvironments to the biome scale and to interactions with society. He had a particular passion for relationships between the physical dynamics of snow and ice; nutrient transformations and associated ecological processes involving microbes and forests through to mammals; and atmosphere-snow/ice cover-soil and vegetation interactions. He came alive during fieldwork, and his favourite field study areas were northern and sub-Arctic Canadian forest and lake systems. He championed laboratory cold room studies to diagnose the complex behaviour of the natural systems he was exploring. He made major discoveries and advances in linking the chemistry of seasonal snowpacks to vegetation interactions, hydrology, and microbial processes at a time when “acid rain” was a major threat to ecosystems in Canada, U.S., and Europe. His contributions to understanding that lake acidification was due to snow chemical runoff, which itself was the interaction of atmospheric deposition with the basin hydrology and ecosystem, were fundamental to predicting the impacts of acid deposition and to the scientific underpinning of treaties that would limit the industrial emissions causing acid precipitation. He was a true seer and science-shape changer.
His innovative, interdisciplinary approach to science was complemented by his bardic gift for elocution to mentor students and draw scientists into his interests through his engaging and embracing personality – be it in the laboratory, in the field, in lecture theatres, or the pub. His great legacy was to first bring together snow physicists, chemists, climatologists, and hydrologists in interdisciplinary examinations of the snowpack, and then to include biologists and microbiologists in interdisciplinary snow and ice studies, transforming the perspective of the cryosphere from a cold, lifeless boundary condition or hydrological reservoir, into the dynamic, multiphase biome that modern studies assume.
He initiated the Snow Ecology Working Group, consisting of scientists with a wide variety of backgrounds, to assess the meteorology, physics, chemistry, hydrology, and biology of snowpacks and snow impacts on ecosystems. He led this group to show that diverse life and complete food chains existed in the snowpack; that the seasonal snowcover was a result of complex interactions amongst the atmosphere, hydrology, vegetation, soils, microbes, insects, and mammals; and that the resulting nival habitat was a crucial ecosystem for the planet. He was the driver behind, and primary editor of, the first comprehensive book on the snow biome, Snow Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Examination of Snow-covered Ecosystems, published by Cambridge University Press in 2001.
Professor Jones was also an inclusive leader, consummate scientific diplomat, compelling advocate, and visionary strategist. He helped initiate the IAHS Inter-Celtic Hydrology Symposia, where he promoted pioneering socio-hydrological investigations on the influence of snow hydrology and climate on the Welsh settlement of North America (from 1170 onwards!). He anticipated that cryospheric science could become a unique discipline deserving of global attention, something celebrated now by the UN’s Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences. He chaired the NATO Advanced Science Institute on Seasonal Snowcovers: Physics, Chemistry, Hydrology, at Les Arcs, France in 1986, where great advances were made in the holistic consideration of the snowpack and its impacts on ecosystems. He served as president of the Eastern Snow Conference from 1989–1990 and hosted the epic joint meeting of the Western and Eastern Snow Conference in Quebec City in 1993.
From 1999 to 2005, he served as president-elect and president of the International Commission on Snow and Ice (ICSI) of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), an association of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). At the request of the ICSI Bureau, and with the support of various IUGG Associations and other colleagues in the cryospheric community, he initiated a stepwise process during this period to elevate the status of ICSI to that of an IUGG Association, to be named the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS). In 2007 the undertaking came to fruition and IACS became the 8th Association of IUGG at the IUGG General Assembly at Perugia. He also supported the development of the International Commission for Snow and Ice Hydrology (ICSIH) of IAHS, becoming ICSIH’s first honorary past president to ensure interdisciplinary studies of cryospheric hydrology. Professor Jones was an Honorary Member of IACS, an Elected Fellow of the IUGG “for his pioneering contributions to the crosscutting field of snow ecology as well as for his relentless work towards the establishment of an International Association of Cryospheric Sciences within IUGG,” and a Life Member of the Eastern Snow Conference (ESC).
In leisure times he devoted much of his attention to such favourite subjects as the social history of Wales, metaphysics, yr iath Gymraeg, the French language and culture of Québec, an appreciation of real ales and single malt whiskies, and following the fortunes of the Llanelli “Scarlets.” Having been a fine scrum-half himself, he would defend the realm of this “finest club in Welsh Rugby” as ardently as he promoted the role of snow and ice in the biogeochemistry of the Earth’s system.
Long may he rest in peace whilst we enjoy the fruits of the work he did in shaping our modern appreciation of the great life force in the cryosphere and its importance for our planet and for the survival of humanity itself.
