Noah Diffenbaugh

About

Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh is the William Wrigley Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow in Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability, as well as the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. His research focuses on understanding the aspects of the climate system that most directly and acutely impact people and ecosystems. He has served as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and as Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journals Geophysical Research Letters and Environmental Research: Climate. Dr. Diffenbaugh has provided scientific expertise and testimony to Federal, State, and local officials. He holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and both a B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University. His professional achievements include being an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), receiving the James R. Holton Award and William Kaula Award from the AGU, and being recognized as a Kavli Fellow by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Research topics

• Geography
• Climatology
• Geology
• Oceanography
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Environmental planning
• Environmental resource management
• Meteorology
• Development economics

Selected publications

• Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California

  Environmental Research Letters · 2020 · 626 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract California has experienced devastating autumn wildfires in recent years. These autumn wildfires have coincided with extreme fire weather conditions during periods of strong offshore winds coincident with unusually dry vegetation enabled by anomalously warm conditions and late onset of autumn precipitation. In this study, we quantify observed changes in the occurrence and magnitude of meteorological factors that enable extreme autumn wildfires in California, and use climate model simulat…

  DOI

• The COVID-19 lockdowns: a window into the Earth System

  Nature Reviews Earth & Environment · 2020 · 218 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Increasing Hydroclimatic Whiplash Can Amplify Wildfire Risk in a Warming Climate

  Global Change Biology · 2025-02-01 · 26 citations

  letterOpen access

  On January 7 and 8, 2025, a series of wind-driven wildfires occurred in Los Angeles County in Southern California. Two of these fires ignited in dense woody chaparral shrubland and immediately burned into adjacent populated areas–the Palisades Fire on the coastal slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Eaton fire in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Both fires ultimately eclipsed the traditionally-defined “wildland-urban interface” boundaries by burning structure-to-structure as a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Wildfire smoke exposure and mortality burden in the USA under climate change

  Nature · 2025-09-18 · 21 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Exposure to compound climate hazards transmitted via global agricultural trade networks

  Environmental Research Letters · 2025-02-20 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Compound climate hazards, such as co-occurring temperature and precipitation extremes, substantially impact people and ecosystems. Internal climate variability combines with the forced global warming response to determine both the magnitude and spatial distribution of these events, and their consequences can propagate from one country to another via many pathways. We examine how exposure to compound climate hazards in one country is transmitted internationally via agricultural trade net…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Investigation of Holocene Seasonality and Inter-annual Variability Along the California Current System

  NSF · $149k · 2004–2008

• Collaborative Research: Water Balance of western North America:  Dynamics of the Miocene summer monsoon

  NSF · $230k · 2005–2009

• CAREER: Dynamics and Impacts of Fine-Scale Climate Change

  NSF · $444k · 2010–2016

Frequent coauthors

• Moetasim Ashfaq

  91 shared

• Daniel L. Swain

  University of California, Los Angeles

  66 shared

• Justin Mankin

  Dartmouth College

  58 shared

• Deepti Singh

  Washington State University Vancouver

  56 shared

• Daniel E. Horton

  56 shared

• Marshall Burke

  Stanford University

  42 shared

• Frances V. Davenport

  Colorado State University

  30 shared

• Danielle Touma

  The University of Texas at Austin

  29 shared

Awards & honors

• James R. Holton Award
• William Kaula Award from the AGU
• Kavli Fellow by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Eric Lambinh-130
• David Lobellh-115
• Scott Fendorfh-111