Raymond Pierrehumbert
Encyclopedia
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. He was a lead author on the IPCC Third Assessment Report, and a co-author of the National Research Council
United States National Research Council
The National Research Council of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academies, carrying out most of the studies done in their names.The National Academies include:* National Academy of Sciences...
report on abrupt climate change
Abrupt climate change
An abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to transition to a new state at a rate that is determined by the climate system itself, and which is more rapid than the rate of change of the external forcing...
. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in 1996, which was used to launch collaborative work on the climate of Early Mars with collaborators in Paris. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
, and has been named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the Republic of France.
Pierrehumbert's central research interest is how climate works as a system and developing idealized mathematical models to be used to address questions of climate science such as how the earth kept from freezing over: the faint young sun paradox
Faint young sun paradox
The faint young Sun paradox or problem describes the apparent contradiction between observations of liquid water early in the Earth's history and the astrophysical expectation that the Sun's output would be only 70% as intense during that epoch as it is during the modern epoch. The issue was raised...
. Current interests include climate of extrasolar planets.
Pierrehumbert also contributes to RealClimate
RealClimate
RealClimate is a commentary site on climatology. The site's contributors are a group of climate scientists whose goal is to provide a quick response to developing stories and providing the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion is intended to be restricted to scientific...
.
Selected papers
- Pierrehumbert R.T. 2002: "The Hydrologic Cycle in Deep Time Climate Problems", Nature, 419, 191-198.
- Pierrehumbert R.T. 2003: "Counting the Cost", Nature, 422 (6929), 263.
- Goodman, J.C. and R.T. Pierrehumbert 2003: "Glacial flow of floating marine ice in Snowball Earth", J. Geophys. Res., 108 (C10), 3308, doi:10.1029/2002JC001471.
- Alley R.B., J. Marotzke, W.D. Nordhaus, J.T. Overpeck, D.M. Peteet, R.A. Pielke Jr., R.T. Pierrehumbert, P.B. Rhines, T.F. Stocker, L. Talley and J.M. Wallace, 2003: "Abrupt Climate Change", Science, 299, 2005-2010.
- Pierrehumbert, R.T. 2004: "High levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide necessary for the termination of global glaciation", Nature, 429, 646-649.
- Pierrehumbert, R.T. 2004: "Warming the world: Greenhouse effect: Fourier’s concept of planetary energy balance is still relevant today". Nature, 432, 677.
- Pierrehumbert, R.T. 2005: "Climate dynamics of a hard snowball Earth", J. Geophys. Res., 110 (D01111), doi:10.1029/2004JD005162.