Ben Santer is an atmospheric scientist. He recently retired from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and is now a Fowler Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a Visiting Researcher at UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. Ben’s research identified human fingerprints in atmospheric temperature and water vapor, ocean heat content, sea surface temperature in hurricane formation regions, and many other climate variables. This work contributed to the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. 

Ben has received a number of awards for his research, including  a MacArthur Fellowship (1998), membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2011), and the Procter Prize (2019). The most significant awards are the friendships he has made during his career. In addition to his research, he cares deeply about the communication of climate science to a wide range of audiences. He writes for the Scientific American blog and has appeared on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”