Richard Somerville, Ph.D., is a theoretical meteorologist and since 1979, has been a Professor of Meteorology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

Somerville's ongoing research projects are in climate and climate change. His primary focus is on the role of clouds, cloud-radiation interactions, and cloud feedbacks in climate, involving using measurements from field observational programs, together with numerical models and other theoretical tools, to test and improve the ways in which computer simulations of the global climate represent the effects of clouds. His specific current interests include radiative transfer theory, cloud microphysics, polar clouds, and the role of dust and other particles in influencing clouds and climate. Somerville is active in education and public outreach and frequently comments on environmental issues for the print and broadcast media.

Somerville earned a B.S. from Penn State University and a Ph.D. from New York University in meteorology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Somerville is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change, which was awarded the Louis J. Battan Author's Award from the AMS. He was also awarded the Walter Orr Roberts Lectureship in Interdisciplinary Sciences by the AMS, "in recognition of significant contributions to the understanding of atmospheric processes." In 2002-2003, Somerville was a Distinguished Lecturer for Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society.