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Richard T. Wetherald (1936–2011)

Basic Facts

  • Full name: Richard T. Wetherald
  • Born: 28 March 1936, New Jersey, USA
  • Parents: Joseph Wetherald and Ruth M. Wetherald
  • Died: 9 October 2011, Trenton, New Jersey, USA (age 75)
  • Obituary published: The Times of Trenton, 12 October 2011

Education

No public source provides details about Wetherald’s undergraduate institution or graduate degrees. His education background has not been documented in available biographical resources. His GFDL bibliography lists him from the early 1960s onward. The most likely scenario is that he joined GFDL shortly after completing graduate study, but this cannot be confirmed from current sources.

Career

  • GFDL, Washington D.C. and Princeton (career dates not fully established – GFDL from early/mid-1960s): Research meteorologist under Syukuro Manabe in the Climate Dynamics Group.
  • Worked under Manabe’s Climate Dynamics Group, which “began researching the greenhouse effect in the late 1960s and early 1970s” (per GFDL sources).
  • His collaboration with Manabe spanned nearly four decades.
  • Retired from GFDL; no dates found for his retirement.

Major Scientific Contributions

1967 – Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere (with Manabe)

Co-authored the foundational climate paper: Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. (1967). “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 24(3), 241–259.

This was the first credible computational quantification of the greenhouse effect: doubling CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm would warm the surface by 2.36 degrees C (Table 5, with fixed relative humidity). The paper was later voted most influential climate research paper of all time in a Carbon Brief survey of climatologists.

Key innovations:

  • Fixed relative humidity (not specific humidity) – capturing water vapor feedback.
  • Predicted stratospheric cooling alongside tropospheric warming – a fingerprint of greenhouse gas-driven warming, not solar-driven warming.
  • Their result has been validated by 50+ years of observations: observed sensitivity is approximately 2.57 degrees C per doubling, less than 10% above their 1967 estimate.

1975 – CO2 Doubling with 3D GCM (with Manabe)

Co-authored: Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. (1975). “The Effects of Doubling the CO2 Concentration on the Climate of a General Circulation Model.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 32(1), 3–15.

This was the first use of a three-dimensional general circulation model to simulate the global response to doubled CO2. Key findings:

  • Global mean surface warming: approximately 3 degrees C.
  • First prediction of Arctic amplification in the literature: polar warming larger than tropical warming, amplified by the recession of snow and ice boundaries.
  • Predicted intensification of the hydrological cycle: more evaporation, more precipitation, more intense rainfall.
  • These predictions have been confirmed by subsequent observations and form the basis of the 1979 Charney Report’s conclusions.

Later Work

Wetherald continued publishing at GFDL through at least the early 2000s. Key later papers include:

  • Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. (1980). “On the Distribution of Climate Change Resulting from an Increase in CO2 Content of the Atmosphere.” J. Atmos. Sci., 37(1), 99–118.
  • Wetherald, R. T. & Manabe, S. (1988). “Cloud Feedback Processes in a General Circulation Model.” J. Atmos. Sci., 45(8), 1397–1416.
  • Wetherald, R. T. & Manabe, S. (2002). “Simulation of Hydrologic Changes Associated with Global Warming.” Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(D19).

Awards and Recognition

  • Meteorologist Professional of the Year for 2007 in Meteorology Research – Strathmore’s Who’s Who.
  • No major professional awards from AMS, AGU, or equivalent societies have been found in public records.
  • Not cited in the Nobel Prize committee’s scientific background document for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics, despite co-authoring the paper cited as the foundation for Manabe’s award.

The Recognition Gap

Wetherald co-authored what is widely considered the most influential climate paper in history (1967) and the paper that first predicted Arctic amplification (1975). Yet he received no major international recognition from the scientific community during his lifetime. He died on 9 October 2011 – ten years before his co-author Manabe received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021. The Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously. The Nobel Committee’s documentation does not mention Wetherald by name, despite the 1967 paper being at the center of Manabe’s recognition.

RealClimate (2021) noted this as one of many instances where long-term collaborators in climate science go unrecognized while a single “lead” scientist receives all credit.

Sources

Accessed: 2026-04-08