Jean Jouzel (born 5 March 1947) is a French

glaciologist Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, clim ...

and

climatologist Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospheric ...

. He has mainly worked on the reconstruction of past climate derived from the study of the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

and

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

ice.

Career

Jean Jouzel's career occurred mostly at the CEA (

Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA ( French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and sec ...

), the French nuclear public organization. In 1991 he became vice-president of LMCE, the CEA laboratory dedicated to environment and climate; in 1995 he became its research director. In 1998 he became director of climate research of the LSCE, which resulted from the fusion of LMCE with another environmental research laboratory. From 2001 to 2008 he was director of the IPSL (Institut Pierre Simon Laplace), a major federative laboratory on climate research in the Paris region, including CEA LMCE-LSCE. He has focussed his research on isotopic modelling, especially water isotopes for reconstruction of past climate from ice cores. After the 1970s, he combined his effort with the prominent French glaciologist Claude Lorius and he has contributed to the project of deep ice drilling in Antarctica, first in Vostok, then in EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica), which he led from 1995 to 2001, producing 800,000 years of climate history.

Involvement in IPCC

From 2002 to 2015 Jean Jouzel was vice-chair of the Scientific Working Group of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World Met ...

(IPCC).

Political activism

Jean Jouzel has supported socialist candidates, including Benoît Hamon for the French Republic presidential elections occurred in 2017 and Anne Hidalgo, for whom he was chair of the support committee for the Paris mayoral elections of 2020.

Awards

Jean Jouzel has received many scientific or public awards. * 1997 - Milutin Milankovic Medal. * 2002 - CNRS Gold Medal, the highest French scientific award, jointly with Claude Lorius * 2003 -

Roger Revelle Medal The Roger Revelle Medal is given out annually by the American Geophysical Union to recognize "outstanding accomplishments or contributions toward the understanding of the Earth’s atmospheric processes, including its dynamics, chemistry, and ra ...

* 2012 -

Vetlesen Prize The Vetlesen Prize is a prize in geology awarded jointly by Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation. The prize is generally regarded as the highest distinction in geologic studies, and the " Nobe ...

, shared with

Susan Solomon Susan Solomon is an American atmospheric chemist, working for most of her career at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2011, Solomon joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she serves a ...

. * 2015 - Leonardo da Vinci Award from European Academy of Sciences. * 2016 - Foreign associate of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. * 2017 - Member of the French Academy of Sciences. * 2023 -

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2023
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Bibliography

References

External links

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1947 births Living people People from Ille-et-Vilaine Scientists from Brittany French climatologists French glaciologists Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Vetlesen Prize winners {{climate-bio-stub