Recipient of the 2026 Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom
RICHARD LINDZEN
Over a six-decade career in dynamical meteorology, Richard Lindzen has shaped our understanding of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. He has produced nearly 250 scholarly publications. Among other contributions, he played a major role in developing the current theory of the Hadley circulation, by which heat and momentum move from the tropics toward the poles, including its response to off-equatorial heating. He has held named professorships at Harvard University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of numerous scientific societies, has received many scholarly honors worldwide, and was a lead author of Chapter 7 of the 2001 Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As the study of climate began to change in the 1980s, Prof. Lindzen raised scholarly questions about the assumptions embedded in some of the new climate models. Immediately, he became a target of extreme personal vilification and professional hostility, including opposition to his funding and his ability to publish. Attacks on Prof. Lindzen were renewed after he publicly characterized as “illegal and unethical” the data practices documented in emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. By resolutely refusing to allow vilification and professional threats to deter him from upholding scientific standards, Prof. Lindzen has demonstrated extraordinary intellectual courage.
The Academy was honored to present the 2026 Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom to Richard Lindzen.
