Santer, Benjamin D.
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Benjamin D. Santer (1955 - ) is an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His research focuses on climate model evaluation, the use of statistical methods in climate science, and the detection and attribution of natural and anthropogenic “fingerprints” in observed climate records. Dr. Santer’s research contributed to the historic “discernible human influence” conclusion of the 1995 Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Santer received a Ph.D. in 1987 from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia under the supervision of noted climatologist Tom Wigley. He then assumed a post-doctoral position at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany where he first directed his attention towards the problem of identifying a human-induced “signal” in observed records of climate-change. After spending five years in Hamburg, Santer joined Prof. Larry Gates’ group at the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). His research at LLNL addresses the contentious issue of whether model-simulated changes in tropospheric temperature are in accord with satellite-based temperature measurements. His recent work has attempted to identify anthropogenic fingerprints in a number of different climate variables, such as tropopause height, atmospheric water vapor, the temperature of the stratosphere and troposphere, and ocean surface temperatures in hurricane formation regions.
Santer was the convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 of 1995 IPCC Working Group I Report. In 1998 Santer was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant of $270,000 for research supporting the finding that human activity contributes to global warming. He has also received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award and a Distinguished Scientist Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Norbert Gerbier/MUMM award from the World Meteorological Organization.
