Andrew Dessler

About

Andrew Dessler is a professor at Texas A&M University in the College of Arts and Sciences, serving as the Director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather. His research interests encompass climate impacts, global climate physics, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change policy. His work has shifted towards understanding how climate change affects human society, including the quantification of climate extremes and the analysis of how climate change stresses energy, water, and other critical infrastructure and human systems. Dessler's earlier research focused on global climate physics, including estimating feedbacks such as water vapor and cloud feedbacks, as well as climate sensitivity, with the aim of improving understanding of atmospheric physics and testing the validity of climate models. He also studied the chemistry of the stratosphere, working on water vapor and ozone instruments and analyzing satellite measurements related to ozone chemistry, although he no longer works in this area. His experience includes serving as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he gained insight into the use and misuse of science in policy debates. Based on this, he authored a book explaining how science is used in the context of climate change policy. Dessler holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.A. from Rice University. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Association for the Advancement of…

Research topics

• Geology
• Climatology
• Environmental science
• Political Science
• Oceanography
• Business
• Atmospheric sciences
• Optics
• Physics
• Geography

Selected publications

• Greater committed warming after accounting for the pattern effect

  Nature Climate Change · 2021 · 86 citations

  DOI

• Cloud and Aerosol Distributions From SAGE III/ISS Observations

  Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · 2021 · 47 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract We describe our Solar Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) III/ISS cloud detection algorithm and observations. We identify three types of clouds: visible cirrus (extinction coefficient > 3 x 10 −2 km −1 ), subvisible cirrus (extinction coefficient between 3 x 10 −2 km −1 and 10 −3 km −1 ), and very low extinction cloud‐aerosol mixtures (extinction coefficient between 10 −3 km −1 and 10 −4 km −1 ). Visible cirrus cannot be quantitatively measured by SAGE because of its high extinction, b…

  PublisherDOI

• The Estimated Climate Impact of the Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai Eruption Plume

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2023-09-26 · 43 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract On 15 January 2022, the Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai (HT) eruption injected SO 2 and water into the middle stratosphere. The SO 2 is rapidly converted to sulfate aerosols. The aerosol and water vapor anomalies have persisted in the Southern Hemisphere throughout 2022. The water vapor anomaly increases the net downward IR radiative flux whereas the aerosol layer reduces the direct solar forcing. The direct solar flux reduction is larger than the increased IR flux. Thus, the net tropospheric…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Persistent high latitude amplification of the Pacific Ocean over the past 10 million years

  Nature Communications · 2022-11-27 · 31 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract While high latitude amplification is seen in modern observations, paleoclimate records, and climate modeling, better constraints on the magnitude and pattern of amplification would provide insights into the mechanisms that drive it, which remain actively debated. Here we present multi-proxy multi-site paleotemperature records over the last 10 million years from the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) – the warmest endmember of the global ocean that is uniquely important in the global radia…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evolution of the Climate Forcing During the Two Years After the Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai Eruption

  Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · 2024-07-24 · 30 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We calculate the climate forcing for the 2 ys after the 15 January 2022, Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai (Hunga) eruption. We use satellite observations of stratospheric aerosols, trace gases and temperatures to compute the tropopause radiative flux changes relative to climatology. Overall, the net downward radiative flux decreased compared to climatology. The Hunga stratospheric water vapor anomaly initially increases the downward infrared radiative flux, but this forcing diminishes as the a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Analysis of the Radiative Response of Clouds to El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Climate Fluctuations

  NSF · $150k · 2010–2013

• Understanding Long-term Variations in Stratospheric Water Vapor

  NSF · $259k · 2013–2017

• Understanding Measurements of Climate Sensitivity

  NSF · $428k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• M. R. Schoeberl

  Science and Technology Corporation (Norway)

  45 shared

• Tao Wang

  China General Nuclear Power Corporation (China)

  34 shared

• E. M. Weinstock

  Partners In Care

  28 shared

• Edward A. Parson

  Environmental Law Institute

  25 shared

• Steven C. Sherwood

  ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science

  25 shared

• J. G. Anderson

  Intermountain Medical Center

  24 shared

• E. J. Hintsa

  23 shared

• Wandi Yu

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  20 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Atmospheric Chemistry

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1990

• M.S., Atmospheric Chemistry

  University of California, Berkeley

  1985

• B.S., Chemistry

  University of California, Berkeley

  1983

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the AGU
• Fellow of the AAAS

Similar researchers at Texas A&M University

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• Ping Yangh-81
• R. Saravananh-51