Kevin Trenberth

Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is a climate scientist and Distinguished Scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. He also serves as an honorary academic in the Department of Physics at Auckland University in New Zealand. Trenberth earned his Sc.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on climate variability, climate change, and the global energy and water cycles.

Trenberth served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientific assessment reports and as a Lead Author for additional reports. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions to understanding climate change. He has contributed extensively to the World Climate Research Programme, including serving as chair of the Global Energy and Water Exchanges project. In the climate-change case Held v Montana, Trenberth served as an expert witness.

Trenberth has published more than 600 works, including books, book chapters, journal articles, technical notes, proceedings, preprints, and videos. He edited the book "Climate System Modeling" and authored "The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System." His work has been recognized by the Financial Times of London, which ranked him among the top 10 climate scientists globally.

Trenberth has received several honors, including the Jule G. Charney Award from the American Meteorological Society, the NCAR Distinguished Achievement Award, the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union, and the Roger Revelle Medal from the American Geophysical Union. He was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to geophysics. Trenberth is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi.

Trenberth continues to contribute to scientific papers, deliver talks, and explain phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña to audiences worldwide. He is recognized for communicating complex climate science to policymakers, legal proceedings, and the general public, emphasizing both the limits of current knowledge and the evidence for human-caused climate change.