Matthew Huber, Yi Ming, David Romps, and Joel Thornton will receive the 2018 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2018, to be held 10–14 December in Washington, D. C. The award recognizes research contributions by “exceptional, mid-career scientists in the atmospheric and climate sciences fields.”  

Matthew Huber will receive the 2018 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award for his significant and fundamental contributions to understanding the factors controlling ocean–atmosphere heat transport, the evolution of climate sensitivity with climate state, and the interactions between modes of variability with the mean climate state.

The summary of Matthew’s research in his nomination letter is truly exemplary of a researcher on a steep ascent. He refuted the theory that changes in ocean heat transport were the primary drivers of high-latitude warmth and ice-free Antarctica in past climates, thus placing emphasis on atmospheric drivers—especially greenhouse gases—for explaining the major climate changes of the past 60 million years. He produced the first early Eocene simulations and provided one of the first thorough investigations of changes in “fast” climate sensitivity across a wide range of warmer climate states, demonstrating that climate sensitivity increases with warming. Huber’s work has also made clear that the tropics are sensitive to forcing and potentially vulnerable to change. In 2000, he proposed on theoretical grounds that all existing tropical temperature proxy data were 5°C too cold, a finding that was subsequently shown using proxy data. He combined data and modeling to demonstrate that El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability is a robust phenomenon that existed in past warm climates and is not subject to major changes with warming or continental geometry, a controversial finding at the time. He showed that superrotation occurs in a general circulation model (GCM) with only pCO2 changes as a driver. He provided the first demonstration from modern observations that tropical cyclones pump significant heat into the tropical oceans. Huber also was the first to propose, through a combination of models and paleoclimate data, that the global monsoon system is robust and existed at least as far back as the early Eocene (50 million years ago). Finally, he performed a series of future simulations based on the equilibrium climate sensitivity implied by new Eocene temperature reconstructions that show that half the world’s population may be subject to uninhabitable conditions in the limit of a strong, sustained, anthropogenic greenhouse gas release.

Matthew’s substantial impact on the field of climate science is exemplified by his large number of high-impact papers. As of last April, Matt had published more than 87 peer-reviewed articles, many of substantial impact. He has also been involved in community service through his editorship of Earth System Dynamics and Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G3). He exemplifies the qualities needed to continue to advance the field of climate change and is richly deserving of a 2018 Ascent Award. On behalf of the AGU Atmospheric Sciences section, I am pleased to present a 2018 Ascent Award to Matthew Huber.

—Joyce E. Penner, President, Atmospheric Sciences Section, AGU

I am deeply grateful for the AGU Ascent Award. I have never won anything before, so I’m not sure what to say. I will keep it simple. AGU, of all societies, has always been my intellectual home, and therefore this award is of special significance to me. My thanks to AGU and the Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award Committee. While much of what I have worked on emerged through happy accidents and fortuitous meet-ups, my long-term focus has been on trying to discover the fundamental physical relationship between global mean surface temperature and the meridional temperature gradient in warm climates. Ray Pierrehumbert first set me down that road 25 years ago and has consistently nudged me in the right direction throughout my career, so I owe him a great debt. Furthermore, the work acknowledged in this award developed with strong support from and from collaboration with many, including Michael Ghil, Jim McWilliams, Lisa Sloan, Rodrigo Caballero, Henk Brinkhuis, Kerry Emanuel, Mark Pagani, and Appy Sluijs, to name a few. My students and other members of my research group have been a joy to me and have provided the grist for the mill that grinds us all ever so finely. I am also indebted to the Purdue University Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and the Purdue Climate Change Research Center for providing a great environment in which to work. I also want to thank those who have resisted and fought hard against this line of research; I would not be in a position to win this award without your efforts as well. That is the beauty of science. Finally, it must be acknowledged that none of this work would have been possible without two things: the support of my family, and coffee—lots of both. —Matthew Huber, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.