Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 9, 2026

Graeme Stephens

Graeme Leslie Stephens is director of the center for climate sciences at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and professor of earth observation the University of Reading.

Last revised
Jul 9, 2026
Read time
≈ 3 min
Length
617 w
Citations
22
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Graeme Stephens
AC FRS
Graeme Stephens in 2021
Born
Graeme Leslie Stephens
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne (BS, PhD)2
Known forCloudSat3
AwardsJule G. Charney Award (2005)
Scientific career
FieldsAtmospheric sciences
InstitutionsCaltech
Colorado State University1
University of Reading
University of Melbourne
ThesisThe transfer of radiation in cloudy atmospheres (1977)
Websitescience.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Stephens

Graeme Leslie Stephens AC FRS4 is director of the center for climate sciences at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology5 and professor of earth observation the University of Reading.67

Education

Stephens was educated at the University of Melbourne in Australia where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics 1973 in followed by a PhD in meteorology in 1977.2

Career and research

Stephens research has provided leadership in three major disciplinary areas of Earth sciences:

  1. Atmospheric radiation and radiative transfer4
  2. Earth observations and remote sensing4
  3. Understanding critical cloud-climate feedbacks and related effects on the Earth's energy budget4

Stephens has pioneered quantitative uses of global Earth observations and combined this with theory to study Earth's climate change feedback.4 He provided leadership in designing and developing international satellite programs exemplified by his creation and leadership of the decade long CloudSat satellite mission3 that is providing novel insights and understanding of the Earth's clouds, precipitation and their role in climate.418

Awards and honours

Stephens was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States in 2015,4 received the Jule G. Charney Award of the American Meteorological Society for pioneering advances in understanding and measuring radiation processes and their role in climate, and received the Gold Medal of the International Radiation Commission in recognition of world leading contributions to the radiation community.4 He also received National Aeronautics Space Administration, Exceptional Public Service Medal.4 In 2025 he received the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal of the American Meteorological Society.9

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.4 In the 2025 King's Birthday Honours, Stephens was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to atmospheric and meteorological science, particularly cloud physics, to climate change research, and as a mentor".10

References

References

  1. Stephens, Graeme L.; Tsay, Si-Chee; Stackhouse, Paul W.; Flatau, Piotr J. (1990). "The Relevance of the Microphysical and Radiative Properties of Cirrus Clouds to Climate and Climatic Feedback". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 47 (14): 1742–1754. Bibcode:1990JAtS...47.1742S. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1990)047<1742:TROTMA>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0022-4928.
  2. Stephens, Graeme Leslie (1977). The transfer of radiation in cloudy atmospheres (PhD thesis). University of Melbourne. OCLC 220235247.
  3. Stephens, Graeme L.; Vane, Deborah G.; Boain, Ronald J.; Mace, Gerald G.; Sassen, Kenneth; Wang, Zhien; Illingworth, Anthony J.; O'connor, Ewan J.; Rossow, William B.; Durden, Stephen L.; Miller, Steven D.; Austin, Richard T.; Benedetti, Angela; Mitrescu, Cristian (2002). "THE CLOUDSAT MISSION AND THE A-TRAIN: A New Dimension of Space-Based Observations of Clouds and Precipitation". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 83 (12): 1771–1790. doi:10.1175/BAMS-83-12-1771. ISSN 0003-0007. Open access icon
  4. Anon (2018). "Professor Graeme Stephens FRS". London: Royal Society. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Terms, conditions and policies | Royal Society". Archived from the original on 11 November 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. Stephens, Graeme. "Science - Center for Climate Sciences (3292): People: Graeme Stephens". science.jpl.nasa.gov.
  6. Reading, The University of. "Graeme Stephens Home Page". www.met.reading.ac.uk.
  7. Graeme Stephens publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  8. Stephens, Graeme L. (2005). "Cloud Feedbacks in the Climate System: A Critical Review". Journal of Climate. 18 (2): 237–273. Bibcode:2005JCli...18..237S. doi:10.1175/JCLI-3243.1. ISSN 0894-8755. S2CID 16122908.
  9. Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal 2025
  10. "Distinguished Professor Graeme Leslie STEPHENS". Australian Honours Search Facility. Retrieved 11 June 2025.

 This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.