About

Sally Benson joined Stanford University in 2007 and is the Precourt Family Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering within the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Her research focuses on technologies and pathways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including geologic storage of CO2 in deep underground formations and energy systems analysis for a low-carbon future. She has served as the Energy Division Director and Chief Strategist for the Energy Transition at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2021 to 2023. Benson has also been Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage and the Stanford Carbon Removal Initiative, and she served as Director and Co-Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy from 2013 to 2020. Her prior roles include Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project and positions at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she was Division Director for Earth Sciences, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences, and Deputy Director. She is a Trustee of the Packard Foundation, a member of the Breakthrough Energy Innovation Council, and a Board Member of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. In 2023, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her extensive service includes participation in numerous advisory boards, research assessments, and editorial roles related to energy and climate change.

Research topics

• Physics
• Atmospheric sciences
• Environmental science
• Geology
• Meteorology
• Remote sensing
• Climatology
• Materials science
• Mechanics
• Geography
• Oceanography

Selected publications

• Impact on cloud properties of reduced-sulphur shipping fuel in the Eastern North Atlantic

  Atmospheric chemistry and physics · 2026-01-22

  articleOpen access

  Abstract. The global reduction in shipping fuel sulphur that culminated in 2020 with an ∼ 80 % reduction has created a large-scale natural experiment on the role of aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) in the climate system. We compare observations from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program's Eastern North Atlantic site (ARM-ENA; 39.1° N, 28.0° W) during two June to September periods: 2016–2018 (pre-2020) and 2021–2023 (post-2020). We find a significant (∼ 15 %) decrease in cloud condensation nuclei concentrations post-2020, which resulted in a decrease in cloud droplet number (Nd) and an increase in effective radius (re) of marine boundary layer clouds. However, cloud liquid water path (LWP) increased post-2020. The increase in LWP offset the increase in re, resulting in insignificant changes to optical depth. MODIS and CERES data in the vicinity of ENA during these periods produce similar results also with negligible change in albedo and optical depth. Regional cloud occurrence declined in line with changes in the large-scale meteorology. Our results highlight the complex interplay of factors that modulate cloud feedbacks in the Eastern North Atlantic.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Contrasting sources, processes, and impacts of ice nucleating particles in the Arctic and Antarctic

  2026-03-14

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Ice nucleating particles (INPs) play a critical role in determining cloud phase, lifetime, and radiative properties in polar regions, yet their sources, composition, and variability remain poorly constrained. The Arctic and Antarctic present fundamentally different environmental settings, with contrasting land-ocean distributions, biological productivity, sea-ice regimes, and anthropogenic influence, offering a natural laboratory to examine how these factors shape polar INP populations.Here, we synthesize recent in situ observations of INP concentrations and properties from ground-based and shipborne platforms across both polar regions, spanning multiple seasons and temperature regimes relevant to mixed-phase cloud formation. Arctic INPs are frequently influenced by terrestrial and sea-ice-related biological sources, and long-range transport, leading to pronounced seasonal variability. In contrast, Antarctic INP populations are typically lower in concentration and more strongly linked to a combination of coastal marine and inorganic sources from over the ice sheet, with concentrations predominantly existing at colder activation temperatures. We highlight emerging evidence for the importance of primary biological aerosols, sea-ice biogeochemistry, and boundary layer processes in regulating Antarctic INPs, while underscoring the role of surface heterogeneity and transport pathways in the Arctic. Differences in vertical distributions and coupling to clouds further suggest divergent impacts on mixed-phase cloud persistence and radiative feedbacks between the two poles.These inter-polar contrasts challenge the common practice of treating polar INPs as a uniform class in models and underscore the need for regionally and process-informed representations. Improving constraints on polar INPs is essential for reducing uncertainties in cloud-phase feedbacks and future climate projections in both hemispheres.

  PublisherDOI

• What Will it Take to Get to Net-Zero Emissions in California?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Securing the nuclear fuel supply chain for a growing energy future

  Nature Energy · 2025-12-29

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary material to "Impact on Cloud Properties of Reduced-Sulphur Shipping Fuel in the Eastern North Atlantic"

  2025-06-05

  preprintOpen access

  Table S1.Statistics of the MERRA Reanalysis data within 500 km of the ARM ENA site for the pre and post periods.The column P indicates the probability that the distributions of a quantity as indicated in Figure 1 are drawn from the same sample population (null hypothesis) according to the Kolmogorv-Smirnov test using the unique average number of days in each period (500) as the number of independent samples.When P exceeds 0.99, we can be confident at the 99% level that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected, and the data appear drawn from the same sample population.

  PublisherDOI

• Impact on Cloud Properties of Reduced-Sulphur Shipping Fuel in the Eastern North Atlantic

  2025-06-05

  preprintOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract. The global reduction in shipping fuel sulphur that culminated in 2020 with an ~80 % reduction has enabled an inadvertent experiment on the role of aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) in the climate system. We compare observations collected at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program's (ARM) Eastern North Atlantic site (ARM-ENA, 39.1 N, 28.0 W) during two June to September periods: 2016–2018 (pre-2020) and 2021–2023 (post-2020). We find a significant (~15 %) decrease in cloud condensation nuclei concentrations post-2020, which resulted in a decrease in cloud droplet number (Nd) and an increase in effective radius (re) of marine boundary layer clouds. However, cloud liquid water path (LWP) increased post-2020. The increase in LWP offset the increase in re, resulting in insignificant changes to the optical depth distribution. MODIS and CERES data in the vicinity of ENA during these periods produce similar results also with negligible change in the albedo and optical depth distributions. Regional cloud occurrence declined in line with changes in the large-scale meteorology. Our results point to a complicated interplay among the factors that modulate cloud feedback in the Eastern North Atlantic.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Association Between Cloud Droplet Number over the Summer Southern Ocean and Air Mass History

  Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · 2024-06-11 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The cloud properties and governing processes in Southern Ocean marine boundary layer clouds have emerged as a central issue in understanding the Earth's climate sensitivity. While our understanding of Southern Ocean cloud feedbacks have evolved in the most recent climate model intercomparison, the background properties of simulated summertime clouds in the Southern Ocean are not consistent with measurements due to known biases in simulating cloud condensation nuclei concentrations. This paper presents several case studies collected during the Capricorn 2 and Marcus campaigns held aboard Australian research vessels in the Austral Summer of 2018. Combining the surface‐observed cases with MODIS data along forward and backward air mass trajectories, we demonstrate the evolution of cloud properties with time. These cases are consistent with multi‐year statistics showing that long trajectories of air masses over the Antarctic ice sheet are critical to creating high droplet number clouds in the high latitude summer Southern Ocean. We speculate that secondary aerosol production via the oxidation of biogenically derived aerosol precursor gasses over the high actinic flux region of the high latitude ice sheets is fundamental to maintaining relatively high droplet numbers in Southern Ocean clouds during Summer.

  PublisherDOI

• Natural marine cloud brightening in the Southern Ocean

  Atmospheric chemistry and physics · 2023-02-01 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract. The number of cloud droplets per unit volume (Nd) is a fundamentally important property of marine boundary layer (MBL) liquid clouds that, at constant liquid water path, exerts considerable controls on albedo. Past work has shown that regional Nd has a direct correlation to marine primary productivity (PP) because of the role of seasonally varying, biogenically derived precursor gases in modulating secondary aerosol properties. These linkages are thought to be observable over the high-latitude oceans, where strong seasonal variability in aerosol and meteorology covary in mostly pristine environments. Here, we examine Nd variability derived from 5 years of MODIS Level 2-derived cloud properties in a broad region of the summer eastern Southern Ocean and adjacent marginal seas. We demonstrate latitudinal, longitudinal and temporal gradients in Nd that are strongly correlated with the passage of air masses over high-PP waters that are mostly concentrated along the Antarctic Shelf poleward of 60∘ S. We find that the albedo of MBL clouds in the latitudes south of 60∘ S is significantly higher than similar liquid water path (LWP) clouds north of this latitude.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Association Between Cloud Droplet Number Over the Summer Southern Ocean and Air Mass History

  2023-12-26 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  The cloud properties and governing processes in Southern Ocean marine boundary layer clouds have emerged as a central issue in understanding the Earth's climate sensitivity. While the simulated cloud feedbacks in Southern Ocean clouds have evolved in the most recent climate model intercomparison, the background properties of simulated summertime clouds in the Southern Ocean are not consistent with measurements due to known biases in simulating cloud condensation nuclei concentrations. This paper presents several case studies collected during the Capricorn 2 and Marcus campaigns held aboard Australian research vessels in the Austral Summer of 2018. Combining the surface-observed cases with MODIS data along forward and backward air mass trajectories, we demonstrate the evolution of cloud properties with time. These cases are consistent with multi-year statistics showing that long trajectories of air masses over the Antarctic ice sheet are critical to creating high droplet number clouds in the high latitude summer Southern Ocean. We speculate that secondary aerosol production via the oxidation of biogenically derived aerosol precursor gasses over the high actinic flux region of the high latitude ice sheets is fundamental to maintaining relatively high droplet numbers in Southern Ocean clouds during Summer.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Inferring the Properties of Snow in Southern Ocean Shallow Convection and Frontal Systems Using Dual-Polarization C-Band Radar

  Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology · 2022-12-13 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We use dual-polarization C-band data collected in the Southern Ocean to examine the properties of snow observed during a voyage in the austral summer of 2018. Using existing forward modeling formalisms based on an assumption of Rayleigh scattering by soft spheroids, an optimal estimation algorithm is implemented to infer snow properties from horizontally polarized radar reflectivity, the differential radar reflectivity, and the specific differential phase. From the dual-polarization observables, we estimate ice water content q i , the mass-mean particle size D m , and the exponent of the mass–dimensional relationship b m that, with several assumptions, allow for evaluation of snow bulk density, and snow number concentration. Upon evaluating the uncertainties associated with measurement and forward model errors, we determine that the algorithm can retrieve q i , D m , and b m within single-pixel uncertainties conservatively estimated in the range 120%, 60%, and 40%, respectively. Applying the algorithm to open-cellular convection in the Southern Ocean, we find evidence for secondary ice formation processes within multicellular complexes. In stratiform precipitation systems we find snow properties and infer processes that are distinctly different from the shallow convective systems with evidence for riming and aggregation being common. We also find that embedded convection within the frontal system produces precipitation properties consistent with graupel. Examining 5 weeks of data, we show that snow in open-cellular cumulus has higher overall bulk density than snow in stratiform precipitation systems with implications for interpreting measurements from space-based active remote sensors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Gerald G. Mace

  University of Utah

  29 shared

• Charlotte Garing

  13 shared

• Alain Protat

  Australian Antarctic Division

  11 shared

• Ruhi S. Humphries

  9 shared

• Jacques A. de Chalendar

  Stanford University

  8 shared

• Ronny Pini

  Imperial College London

  8 shared

• Qilong Min

  University at Albany, State University of New York

  8 shared

• Ferdinand F. Hingerl

  7 shared

Labs

• Benson LabPI

  Not provided

Education

• Ph.D., Energy Resources Engineering

  Stanford University

  2013

• M.S., Energy Resources Engineering

  Stanford University

• B.S., Geophysics

  Stanford University

Awards & honors

• John Tyndall Award for Research in Carbon Capture and Storag…
• Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah Fo…
• Engineers Health, Safety, and Environmental Award, Society O…
• Arthur D. Storke Lecturer, Columbia University (2018)