Andrew E. Dessler

Early life and education Dessler was born in 1964, in Houston, Texas. His father was Alexander J. Dessler, a planetary physicist then at Rice University. He received a B.A. in physics from Rice University in 1986 and an M.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University in 1990 and 1994. His doctoral thesis was titled In situ stratospheric ozone measurements.

Career After receiving a Ph.D. in 1994, Dessler did two years of Postdoctoral research at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and then spent nine years on the research faculty of the University of Maryland from 1996 to 2005. Dessler went on to become an Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University from 2005 to 2007 and has been a tenured Professor of Atmospheric Sciences there since 2007.

Climate research In 2004, The New York Times said the results of his 2004 article in the Journal of Climate written with Ken Minschwaner placed them, "in the middle between the skeptics and those who argue that warming caused by burning of fossil fuels could be extremely severe." The authors subsequently wrote a joint letter to the editor in response objecting to the impression given by the article that their "research goes against the consensus scientific view that global warming is a serious concern."

Later research, published in a 2009 article in Science showed "warming from rising carbon dioxide should also lead to increased water vapor and additional warming, doubling the warming effect of the carbon dioxide." according to Kenneth Chang of The New York Times.

In 2011, an article in The New York Times examining the theory that clouds might offset the effects of increased greenhouse gasses found that his analysis in a 2011 article in Geophysical Research Letters "offered some evidence that clouds will exacerbate the long-term planetary warming" Following the publication of the article "Dessler became a target of climate science critics" and was interviewed on the PBS show Frontline for the episode "Climate of Doubt" which explored "the massive shift in public opinion on climate change." As a visiting fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in 2013 and 2014 he is undertaking a project titled, "Understanding long-term variations in stratospheric water vapor." In a November 2013 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Dessler and colleagues provide observational evidence of a positive feedback effect of stratospheric water vapor and global warming.

Public Policy Dessler was a policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the final year of the Clinton administration. Dessler has written op-eds on climate change, and has been consulted by newspapers and has given talks on climate change and government policy.

DOE Climate Working Group response On July 29, 2025, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) released a report entitled A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate prepared by its newly-formed Climate Working Group, which consisted of five scientists hand-picked by the Trump administration for their longstanding and vocal contrarian views of climate change. On the same day it was released, the report was cited in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) announcement that was seeking to rescind its 2009 Endangerment Finding, which had concluded that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public health, and which underpins the U.S. government's legal authority to combat climate change.

In response, Dessler and fellow climate scientist Robert Kopp led a group of more than 85 scientists to write a 434-page rebuttal of the DOE document, which was submitted to the DOE, the EPA, and the National Academies. The rebuttal argued that the DOE report's principal conclusions—including claims that there are no significant trends in extreme weather and that carbon dioxide provides broad societal benefits—were misleading or incorrect. According to the rebuttal, the DOE report reached these conclusions through selective use of evidence, emphasis on uncertainties, misrepresentation of peer-reviewed research, and dismissal of decades of established scientific findings.

Books Dessler and Edward Parson co-authored, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate in 2006 (2nd ed. 2009). It was described It was described as, "a fascinating hybrid of science and policy directed at a broad or nonspecialist audience" by Wendy Gordon in a 2008 review in Eos. Gordon's review was positive concluding, "I could comfortably recommend this book to friend and colleagues." and that it would be "an excellent resource for a high school of college-level survey course in either environmental studies or public policy." It also received a favorable review in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society by Paul Higgins. Higgins noted the book's, "careful reasoning and thoughtful presentation" and stated it was a sound guide to the climate change debate. Concluding a generally positive review Randall Wigle writing in Canadian Public Policy stated, "...I believe it is a good candidate for a primer for multidisciplinary classes devoted to climate change policy, but it would have been an even better one with less advocacy of one side of the argument." Maria Ivanova wrote in Global Environmental Politics that the book's scholarly value was indisputable. Writing in New Scientist in 2006 Adrian Barnett said, "Free copies should be shipped to anyone who doubts the reality of climate change, starting with presidents in denial." The book also received very positive reviews in Chromatographia, the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and Environmental Sciences.

In 2012 Dessler wrote Introduction to Modern Climate Change "a textbook for non-science majors that uniquely immerses the reader in the science, impacts, economics, policies and political debate associated with climate change." It is used in classes in environmental sciences and the science and policy of climate change.

Awards and honors 1999 - NASA Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres Best Senior Author Publication Award 2011 - Texas A&M University Sigma Xi Outstanding Science Communicator Award 2012 - Atmospheric Sciences Section Ascent Award, American Geophysical Union 2014 - Louis J. Battan Author's Award, American Meteorological Society 2017 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2019 - Fellow of the American Geophysical Union 2021 - American Geophysical Union Climate Communication Award 2022 - "Friend of the Planet" award from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)

Publications Books authored

Books co-authored

Selected articles