What We Do
Our mission: To recognize, inspire, and promote accurate long-term observations of the environment, and to communicate their significance for mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Public lectures that shed light on the importance of long-term climate research
Keeling Award to recognize outstanding scientists conducting groundbreaking long-term observations starting in 2024
Charles David Keeling Memorial Lecture Series
These public lectures serve to honor Charles D. Keeling and recognize the high standard he set for scientific research. The series was established in 2010 by the Keeling family and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Upcoming Lecture: May 13, 2024
We invite you to join us at the next Charles David Keeling Memorial Lecture featuring acclaimed climatologist Tereza Cavazos.
When: May 13, 2024 – Reception 6:30 - 7:00 PM, Lecture 7:00 - 8:00 PM
Where: Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Who: Tereza Cavazos
Lecture: Our Common Climate: Variability and Climate Change in the US-Mexico Western Border Region
Learn more about the upcoming lecture here. Tickets will be available for purchase through the Birch Aquarium website and at the link below. Please check back soon for ticket availability. We hope to see you there!
Twelfth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/8/2023)
Once You Know: Growing Our Capacity to Face Darkening Climate Predicaments
Dr. Susi Moser delivers the twelfth annual Keeling lecture and offers directions on how climate professionals and citizens can grow skills and capacities to facilitate, navigate, and lead communities through the changes we all face from the confluence of the accelerating climate crisis, more frequent and severe disasters, widespread systemic injustice and oppression, and beyond.
Dr. Susi Moser | Director, Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, Antioch University New England
Eleventh Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/2/2022)
Climate Change, Megadrought, and Wildfire in the Western United States
Park Williams delivers the eleventh annual Keeling lecture and uses records of climate, wildfire, streamflow, and tree-ring widths, along with climate-model simulations, to diagnose recent dramatic trends in the western U.S. toward drought and more and larger wildfires.
Park Williams | Associate Professor, Department of Geography, UCLA
Tenth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/13/2019)
Navigating the Perilous Waters at the Edge of Glaciers to Understand Sea Level Rise
Fiamma Straneo delivers the tenth annual Keeling Lecture and describes the major gaps in our understanding of how ice sheets and glaciers respond to a changing climate and contribute to sea level rise, and how closing these gaps through new measurements of calving glacier edges will help improve sea level rise predictions via modeling.
Fiamma Straneo | Professor, Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography, Scripps Oceanography
Ninth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/14/2018)
Climate Change: Voices of the Pacific
Dr. Elisabeth Holland delivers the ninth annual Keeling Lecture and speaks about the importance of listening to the “Voices of the Pacific” when considering climate change and its impacts.
Dr. Elisabeth Holland | University of the South Pacific
Eighth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/8/2017)
Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable, Managing the Unavoidable
Rosina Bierbaum delivers the eighth annual Keeling Lecture and shows how climate change will affect all regions and sectors of the economy, and disproportionately affect the poorest people on the planet.
Rosina Bierbaum | Professor, University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, and School of Public Health
Seventh Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/9/2016)
The Reverse Keeling Curve: Greenhouse Gases from Ice Cores with Jeff Severinghaus
Dr. Jeff Severinghaus delivers the seventh annual Keeling Lecture and takes you on a thorough exploration of the record that greenhouse gases captured in ice for nearly a million years tells us, and explains what this reveals about current human activities and future conditions for our planet.
Dr. Jeff Severinghaus | Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Sixth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/11/2015)
Natural and Human Causes of Past and Future Climate Change
Clara Deser delivers the sixth annual Keeling Lecture and address a long-standing challenge for climate communicators – articulating the reasons for differences between projections of global scale climate change, which are strikingly consistent across climate models, and projections of regional change, which are not.
Clara Deser | Senior Scientist and Climatologist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Fifth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/13/2014)
Getting Serious About Climate Change
David Victor delivers the fifth annual Keeling Lecture and explains recent scientific climate reports while exploring real-world human impacts on economics, politics, and society.
David Victor | Professor of International Relations and Pacific Studies, UC San Diego
Fourth Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (3/11/2013)
The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change
Richard Somerville delivers the fourth annual Keeling Lecture and discusses the scientific case for urgent action to limit climate change.
Richard Somerville | Climate scientist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Third Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/14/2012)
Third Annual Keeling Lecture
Bill McKibben delivers the third annual Keeling Lecture and brings deep insight into the human dimensions of climate change.
Bill McKibben | Noted environmental author
Second Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/9/2011)
Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options
Lonnie G. Thompson delivers the second annual Keeling Lecture and provides insight into the convincing evidence of climate change provided by glaciers and polar ice-caps, as well as the implications that inaction in the face of this rapid change will have on societies on a global scale.
Lonnie G. Thompson | Distinguished University Professor, School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University
First Annual Charles David Keeling Lecture (5/10/2010)
Climate Change and the Forests of the West
Dr. Steve Running delivers the first annual Keeling Lecture and discusses the paradox of why forests in the West are growing faster while simultaneously suffering from higher die-off rates.
Dr. Steve Running | Regents Professor, College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana
PHOTO CREDITS David Moss air sampling: The Keeling Family