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MIT Professor, Prominent Climate Scientist Richard Lindzen Joins Cato

August 1, 2013 • News Releases

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The Cato Institute welcomes Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, emeritus Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute.

Dr. Lindzen holds A.B, S.M. and PhD degrees in Physics and Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He was the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT from 1983 through 2013, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Lindzen has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Jule Charney award for “highly significant research in the atmospheric sciences” from the American Meteorological Society in 1985, and the Distinguished Engineering Achievement Award from the Engineer’s Council in 2009.

Dr. Lindzen’s pioneering research in atmospheric dynamics has led to multiple analyses of the sensitivity of surface temperatures to atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, all of which support the hypothesis that the sensitivity is considerably below that necessary to generate disastrous climate change.

As a Distinguished Senior Fellow, Dr. Lindzen will focus his work on the interaction between climate science and policymakers, and the biases that are introduced into science when it becomes a government‐​funded enterprise. He will work primarily out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Distinguished Senior Fellow is the most prestigious appointment given by the Cato Institute, and two of these scholars have been awarded Nobel Prizes while affiliated with Cato.