Raymond Pierrehumbert

The 2025 Jean Dominique Cassini Medal & Honorary Membership is awarded to Raymond Pierrehumbert for exceptional research on planetary science that includes fundamental work in the fields of Earth’s climate research, planetary atmospheric evolution, and exoplanet habitability.

Pierrehumbert’s exceptional research on planetary science has shown remarkable breath and impact in the fields of Earth’s climate research, planetary atmospheric evolution, and exoplanet habitability. His fundamental work led to a shift of planetary climate research from a series of planet-specific investigations to a unified field encompassing Earth, the solar system and exoplanets. Pierrehumbert has inspired a new generation of researchers to break down the boundaries of traditional climate science disciplines and build a new, generalized field that treats Earth, the solar system planets and exoplanets on an equal theoretical footing.

Pierrehumbert’s extensive publication list includes the textbook Principles of Planetary Climate which is widely used by students and researchers, combining deep theoretical insight into climate dynamics with wide-ranging discussions of the climates of Earth, Mars, Venus and exoplanets.

Pierrehumbert is the Halley Professor of Physics at Oxford University and has received numerous honors for his work. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the American Geophysical Union), as well as a Chevalier de l’Ordres des Palmes Academiques. It is for all these reasons that EGU awards Ray Pierrrehumbert the Cassini Medal.