Kevin Edward Trenberth (born 8 November 1944) is a New Zealand-American climate scientist who worked in the Climate Analysis Section at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 IPCC assessment reports. He also played major roles in the World Climate Research Programme, for example in its Tropical Oceans Global Atmosphere program (TOGA), the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program, and the Global Energy and Water Exchanges project. Trenberth has published many publications (634 publications, four videos, and many blogs and podcasts as of November 2023). In addition, his work is also highly cited by other scientists which is shown by his h-index of 136 (136 papers have over 136 citations) in 2023. Trenberth received the 2017 Roger Revelle Medal from the American Geophysical Union for his work on climate change issues. In the 2024 New Year Honours, Trenberth was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to geophysics. Trenberth has New Zealand and U.S. citizenship.
Early life and education Trenberth was born in Christchurch on 8 November 1944, the eldest son of Ngaira Trenberth (née Eyre) and Edward Maurice Trenberth. He was educated at Linwood High School, where he was dux in 1962, and went on to study at the University of Canterbury, graduating BSc (Hons) with first-class honours in 1966. After completing his studies at Canterbury, Trenberth worked at the Meteorological Service of New Zealand for two years, and was awarded a research fellowship in 1968 that allowed him to undertake doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His ScD thesis, supervised by Edward Norton Lorenz and completed in 1972, was titled Dynamic coupling of the stratosphere with the troposphere and sudden stratospheric warmings.
Career Trenberth returned to the Meteorological Service in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1972 after completing his PhD in the US. He worked there as a research scientist in the New Zealand Meteorological Service (1966–77). In 1977 he moved to the University of Illinois, where he became a full professor. In 1984, he joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). His career at NCAR was in the Climate Analysis Section, where he was the Head for many years. He became a high level emeritus at NCAR as a Distinguished Scholar in 2019 and he moved back to New Zealand where he is also an honorary affiliated faculty at the University of Auckland. He has been prominent in most of the IPCC assessment reports and has also extensively served the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) in numerous ways. He has also served on many U.S. national committees. He served as editor of several journals.
Research activities Trenberth played a key role in the Tropical Oceans Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) during 1989 to 1994 and he was co-chair of the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program from 1996 to 1999. He chaired the WCRP Observation and Assimilation Panel from 2004 to 2010 and chaired the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) scientific steering group from 2010 to 2013 (member 2007 to 2014). In addition, he served on the Joint Scientific Committee of the WCRP and has made significant contributions to research into El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Storms and hurricanes
Trenberth began some fundamental work related to changes in extremes with climate change in 1998. Until then, the focus of the scientific community had been mainly on changes in average temperatures and precipitation. Trenberth pointed out that the intermittent nature of precipitation mandated attention to intensity, frequency, duration, and type as well as amount. All storms reach out and gather in the available water vapor, which fuels the storm. Therefore, increases in water vapor in the atmosphere with higher temperatures will lead to greater intensity but less frequency of storms. This is because the total amount of water vapor is controlled by surface evaporation, not temperature. The prospects are therefore for more severe storms. Until 2004, little attention had been paid to hurricanes and tropical storm changes, but the summer of 2004 was when four hurricanes made landfall in Florida. The question was whether there was a human global warming role in the activity and thus the damage. To Trenberth it was obvious that there was, and he spoke up when official NOAA statements on hurricanes attributed it all to natural climate variability. Trenberth participated in a tele-news conference, set up by Harvard University, and cautiously suggested that global warming was undoubtedly playing some role. This led to a major outcry from some hurricane meteorologists, and extensive criticism for example by Christopher Landsea, an American meteorologist. As a response, Trenberth published further research on this topic in mid 2005. Coincidentally, a record breaking hurricane season began shortly after (still in 2005) in which Hurricane Katrina caused all kinds of devastation in New Orleans. Two important studies who supported Kevin's research findings came out shortly thereafter: One by Kerry Emanuel, and another led by Peter Webster. Further details on natural variability were provided in a publication by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis J. Shea in 2006. Trenberth further explained the concept to a broader audience in an article on hurricanes and climate change in Scientific American in 2007. It has the short and snappy title: "Warmer Oceans, Stronger Hurricanes".
Short-term climate variability
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