Broecker was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a resident member of the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and European Geophysical Union. He received the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences from the Royal Society of Canada in 1985, the Crafoord Prize in Geoscience, the National Medal of Science in 1996, Maurice W. Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Urey Medal of the European Association of Geochemistry, the V. M. Goldschmidt Award from the Geochemical Society, the Vetlesen Prize from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London, the Roger Revelle Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement from the University of Southern California, the Blue Planet Prize from The Asahi Glass Foundation, the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science from The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change.