Kevin Trenberth

Kevin Edward Trenberth CNZM (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.

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.

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.