October 1st, 2024
Congratulations to Nadir Jeevanjee, recipient of the 2025 Henry G. Houghton Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS). This prestigious award recognizes Dr. Jeevanjee for “providing robust and comprehensive theoretical frameworks to illuminate complex phenomena in climate physics.” A Physical Research Scientist in GFDL’s Atmospheric Physics Division, Dr. Jeevanjee joined GFDL in 2016. Since then he has established his role in physical climatology, known for developing innovative models that enhance our understanding of Earth’s climate system.
Dr. Jeevanjee’s research includes the analytical modeling of clear-sky carbon dioxide forcing, which has provided new insights into the spatial patterns and underlying drivers of radiative forcing, significantly advancing our ability to predict climate sensitivity. His work has been integral in identifying how variations in stratospheric temperatures influence carbon dioxide forcing across climate models, highlighting the critical role of stratospheric temperature in shaping Earth’s climate response. His exploration of the spectral cancellation of climate feedbacks has reshaped the understanding of how feedback mechanisms interact, while also offering clearer interpretations of radiative cooling processes and their impact on global precipitation patterns.
In his tenure so far at GFDL, Dr. Jeevanjee has authored more than ten first-authored publications and numerous collaborative works that span a diverse array of topics, from convection dynamics to the conceptual foundations of climate model hierarchies. His ability to simplify complex climate phenomena into conceptual models has been pivotal in guiding future research, making significant progress on some of the most pressing questions in climate science. According to Keith P. Shine, Ph.D., Regius Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science at the University of Reading, “It was immediately apparent to me that Dr. Jeevanjee is a deep-thinking scientist, whose thinking is strongly ‘curiosity driven’ but that curiosity is targeted at important issues such as fundamental understanding of processes behind climate forcing (and most notably CO2) and climate feedbacks.”
Beyond his research, Dr. Jeevanjee is a dedicated mentor, an associate editor for Climate Science at Reviews of Modern Physics, and a speaker at leading conferences and institutions worldwide. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Southern California, providing a strong foundation that fuels his innovative contributions to climate science.
The Henry G. Houghton Award is early-career recognition and is presented annually by AMS to outstanding researchers in physical meteorology, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, or hydrology within ten years of earning their highest degree.