Aksel C. Wiin-Nielsen (17 December 1924 – 26 April 2010) was a Danish professor of

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, Director of the

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; a ...

(ECMWF), and Secretary-General of the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

(WMO).

Career

Wiin-Nielsen's meteorological career began in 1952 at the

as scientific assistant to Professor

Ragnar Fjørtoft Ragnar Fjørtoft (1 August 1913 – 28 May 1998) was an internationally recognized Norwegian meteorologist. He was part of a Princeton, New Jersey team that in 1950 performed the first successful numerical weather prediction using the ENIAC e ...

. He later moved to next took him to the Institute of Meteorology at

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, which had been set up by

Carl-Gustaf Rossby Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby ( 28 December 1898 – 19 August 1957) was a Swedish-born American meteorologist who first explained the large-scale motions of the atmosphere in terms of fluid mechanics. He identified and characterized both the jet ...

in 1947. Here he participated in the first numerical prediction that completed its computation ahead of the time for which the forecast was made. In 1959 he moved to the US for fifteen years, beginning at the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, run by the U.S. Weather Bureau, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy. In 1961 he accepted an offer to work at the

National Center for Atmospheric Research The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR ) is a US federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and funded by the National Science Foundat ...

(NCAR) in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...

, where his research focused on the general circulation of the atmosphere. Moving to the

in 1963, he set up the meteorology department that later expanded to include

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...

and

aeronomy Aeronomy is the scientific study of the upper atmosphere of the Earth and corresponding regions of the atmospheres of other planets. It is a branch of both atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics. Scientists specializing in aeronomy, know ...

, remaining there for ten years and building the department into a center for research in dynamical meteorology and the general circulation of the atmosphere. In 1973 the

(ECMWF) was formed, and Wiin-Nielsen was appointed as its first director in January 1974. In 1979, the 8th World Meteorological Congress appointed him to be the United Nations'

's third secretary-general, so he left ECMWF at the end of that year. He served from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 1983. From 1975 to 1979 he was chairman of The International Commission on Dynamical Meteorology established in its current form by the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (IAMAP) (now th
International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
IAMAS) at its plenary session in Zurich, Switzerland in 1967. Wiin-Nielsen also served as president of the

European Geophysical Society The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet". The organisation has headq ...

(EGS, now the

European Geosciences Union The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet". The organisation has headq ...

) from 1990 to 1992 and as director of the

Danish Meteorological Institute The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI; ) is the official Danish meteorological institute, administrated by the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities. It makes weather forecasts and observations for Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Is ...

Publications

Wiin-Nielsen has published more than one hundred peer-reviewed papers in various scientific journals. Well known is * Aksel C. Wiin-Nielsen and Tsing-Chang Chen (1993) ''Fundamentals of Atmospheric Energetics''. Oxford University Press, 400 pp.

Awards and honors

Buys Ballot Medal The Buys Ballot Medal is a prize given out by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was instituted in 1888 to honour the achievements of the Dutch meteorologist C.H.D. Buys Ballot. The prize is awarded approximately every ten yea ...

of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1982) * Wihuri International Prize (1983) * Honorary Member of the

(EGS) in recognition of his exceptional and wide-ranging contributions to research and education in

and of his invaluable efforts in support of the

(1998) * Honorary Member of the

Royal Meteorological Society The Royal Meteorological Society is an organization that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Members can be lay enthusiasts. It publishes vari ...

(RMetS) * Honorary Member of the

American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...

(AMS) * AMS Fellow * Member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

, Class for Geosciences * 2011 Awarded

International Meteorological Organization Prize The International Meteorological Organization Prize is awarded annually by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for outstanding contributions in the field of meteorology and, since 1971, the field of operational hydrology. The prize, esta ...

from the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiin-Nielsen, Aksel C. 1924 births 2010 deaths Danish meteorologists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences World Meteorological Organization people Recipients of the Buys Ballot Medal (Netherlands) University of Michigan faculty Danish officials of the United Nations Danish expatriates in the United States