Pierre morelThe First Director of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and Founding Member of WCRP’s Global Energy and Water Exchanges (Gwex) Core Project, Died on December 10, 2024.
Pierre began his research as a a theoretical physicist. His doctoral Thehesis examined the existence and property of a condensed superfluid state of liquid heleum 3 at very low temperature. He lectured on basic physics, geophysical fluid dynamics, and climate science. As his career progressed, he focused his research on study the circulation of the atmosphere. He was devoted to the development of numerical modeling of atmospheric flow that laid the groundwork for the study of climatology.
Pierre’s work played an integral role in the development of tools used to study the atmosphere, many of which are still active today. Examples Include Project éole – An Experimental Wind Energy Plant Conceived in the 1980s and Created in Quebec, Canada that Closed Down in 1993; the Argos satelliteA collaboration between the center National D’études Spatile (CNES) (French Space Agency), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Nasa, to Collect and Relay Meteorologist and relay meteorologist and relay meteorologist Data Around the world that launched in 1978; the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (Sarsat) SystemWhich was developed by the US – Specifically Noaa, NASA, and the Us Coast Guard and Air Force – Canada, and France, with the First Satellite Launch in 1982; And the European Organization for the exploitation of meteorological satellites’ Meteosat Series of geostationary satellites, which launched in 1977 and remain active today. The launch of meteosat -12 in 2022 was the first Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Launch.
Early in his career, pierre was the director of the freench laboratoire de météorologie dynamique (LMD) Before he became the director of the center of the centudes spatials (cines). In 1980 he became the first Chairman of the WCRP, where he steered a broad interdisciplinary research program in Global Climate and Earth System Science that Involved The Participation of Atmospheric, Hydological, and Polar Scientists Worldwide. Pierre was later in charge of planetary programs at nasa and was involved in disastions about the future of nasa’s earth observing system (eos) in the mid-to-late 1990s. As an example, the earth observer article, “Minutes of the FourtEinth Earth Science Enterprise/Earth observing system (ESE/EOS) Investigators Working Group Mending. Series “
Pierre was the recipient of the 2008 Alfred Wegener Medal & Honorary Membership for his outstanding contributions to geophysical fluid dynamics, his Leadership in the Development of Climate Research, the application Of space observation to meteorology and the Earth System Science.
