Pascale Braconnot is a Climate Scientist in the Climate and Environmental Sciences at the

Institute Pierre Simon Laplace The Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (''Pierre Simon Laplace Institute'') is a French organization made up of 9 laboratories (CEREA, GEOPS, LATMOS, LERMA:TASQ, LISA, LMD, LOCEAN, LSCE, METIS) that conduct research into climate science. Organization ...

. She was involved in writing the IPCC Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports.

Early life and education

During her doctoral studies Braconnot worked on tropic ocean models using

statistical method Statistics (from German: ', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social ...

s. She is interested in the amplification of Asian and African

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

s during the

holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

. Braconnot was one of the first to use a

three-dimensional In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (''coordinates'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of a point (geometry), poi ...

coupled ocean model to show the importance of ocean feedback in glacial inception. She has worked on

El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

and the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

insolation. In 1992 she was appointed a French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission.

Research and career

Braconnot is a Professor of

Climate Change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

at the

. She is a member of the Modelling the Earth Response to Multiple Anthropogenic Interactions and Dynamics (MERMAID) group. Her work considers ocean-atmosphere coupling,

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

and

climate simulation Numerical climate models (or climate system models) are mathematical models that can simulate the interactions of important drivers of climate. These drivers are the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. Scientists use climate models to stu ...

s. Braconnot studies past climates to better understand the role of

climate feedback Climate change feedbacks are natural processes that impact how much global temperatures will increase for a given amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Positive feedbacks amplify global warming while negative feedbacks diminish it.IPCC, 2021Annex ...

. She has also worked on

axial tilt In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orbita ...

and

precession Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In o ...

during

interglacial An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene i ...

period. Braconnot has been involved with the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, which analyses

climate model Numerical climate models (or climate system models) are mathematical models that can simulate the interactions of important drivers of climate. These drivers are the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. Scientists use climate models to st ...

outputs. In 2014 Braconnot was awarded a €2.7 million grant from the

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas (; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial instituti ...

foundation for climate research. She was involved with the IPCC Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports. She was selected to be involved with the

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the sixth in a series of reports which assess the available scientific information on climate change. Three Working Groups (WGI, II, ...

scoping meeting in 2017. In 2017 Braconnot signed a letter to

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

to express concern about France withdrawing from

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

. In 2019 Braconnot was elected as an Officer of the

World Climate Research Programme The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Inte ...

Joint Scientific Committee.

Awards and honours

* 2009

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 ...

Milankovich Medal * 2012

Legion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

* 2015 Elected to the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Braconnot, Pascale French climatologists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Women climatologists 21st-century French scientists 21st-century French women scientists Recipients of the Legion of Honour Members of Academia Europaea