Benjamin Strauss

Dr. Benjamin Strauss was elected President and CEO of Climate Central in April 2018 and also serves as Chief Scientist. He is author of numerous scientific papers and reports on sea-level rise and is architect of the Surging Seas suite of maps, tools and visualizations. Strauss has testified before the U.S. Senate and presented to state and local elected officials, and his past work has been cited by the White House and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Surging Seas has earned more than 100 million page views, and with Strauss’s research has generated more than 10,000 appearances in U.S. and international publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, China Daily and The Hindu. He has appeared as an expert on national network news, nationally syndicated radio and documentary television.

In earlier roles at Climate Central, Dr. Strauss served as Chief Scientist, Vice President for Sea Level and Climate Impacts, interim Executive Director and COO. He was a founding board member of Grist.org and the Environmental Leadership Program. Strauss co-organized the 1994 Campus Earth Summit, and consulted to the Nathan Cummings Foundation on higher education and the environment. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, an M.S. in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a B.A. in Biology from Yale University.

Selected Publications

• Kopp RE, DeConto RM, Bader DA, Hay CC, Horton RM, Kulp S, Oppenheimer M, Pollard D, Strauss BH (2017) Evolving Understanding of Antarctic Ice‐Sheet Physics and Ambiguity in Probabilistic Sea‐Level Projections. Earth's Future.

• Kulp S, Strauss BH (2017) Rapid escalation of coastal flood exposure in US municipalities from sea level rise. Climatic Change 142(3-4):477-89.

• Kulp S, Strauss BH (2016) Global DEM errors underpredict coastal vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding. Frontiers in Earth Science 4:36.

• Clark PU et al (2016) Consequences of twenty-first-century policy for multi-millennial climate and sea-level change. Nature Climate Change. 6(4):360.

• Strauss BH, Kulp S, Levermann A (2015) Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. (PNAS Online link)

• Kopp RE, Horton RM, Little CM, Mitrovica JX, Oppenheimer M, Rasmussen DJ, Strauss BH, and Tebaldi C (2014) Probabilistic 21st and 22nd century sea‐level projections at a global network of tide‐gauge sites. Earth's Future.

• Wong-Parodi G and Strauss BH (2014) Team science for science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111 suppl. 4: 13658-13663. (PNAS Online link)

• Wong-Parodi G, Fischhoff B, ​and​ Strauss BH (2014) A method to evaluate the usability of interactive climate change impact decision aids. Climatic Change, 1-9.

• Strauss BH (2013) Rapid accumulation of committed sea-level rise from global warming. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. (PNAS Online link)

• Strauss BH, Ziemlinski R, Weiss JL, and Overpeck JT (2012) Tidally adjusted estimates of topographic vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding for the contiguous United States. Environmental Research Letters.

• Tebaldi C, Strauss BH and Zervas CE (2012) Modelling sea level rise impacts on storm surges along US coasts. Environmental Research Letters.

• Weiss JL, Overpeck JT, and Strauss BH (2011) Implications of recent sea level rise science for low-elevation areas in coastal cities of the conterminous U.S.A. Climatic Change 105: 635-645.