André Berger - Biography#

André Berger is Master of Science in Meteorology from M.I.T. (1971) and Doctor of Science from the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) (1973). He was Ordinary Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) where he lectured on meteorology and climate dynamics. He is Emeritus Professor and Senior Researcher at UCL, doctor honoris causa from the Universities of Aix-Marseille III, Toulouse, Mons and University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and of the Academies in Belgium, the Netherlands, Paris, Canada, Serbia and London. He received the Lemaître Prize 2010, the European Latsis Prize of the European Science Foundation in 2001, the Prix quinquennal of the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research for 1991-1995, and the Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award from the World Meteorological Organization in 1994. He has been responsible for 78 research grants, among which a 2008 European Research Council Advanced Investigators Grant (ranked top of the list).

He was chairman of the International Climate and the International Paleoclimate Commissions, president of the European Geophysical Society and is Honorary President of the European Geo-Sciences Union. He is fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the Royal Meteorological Society. He is a co-founder of the International Polar Foundation (1999). He was a member of the Conseil scientifique consultatif auprès de Météo-France (2001-2012), of the Conseil de l'Environnement d'Electricité de France (1998-2009), of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency (2002-2008) and of the Conseil scientifique de Gaz de France (1994-1999), chairman of the External advisory group on Global Change, Climate and Biodiversity (1998-2002) and of the Coordination Group on Climate Processes and Climate Change (1988-1992), both of the Commission of the European Communities and of the NATO Special Programme Panels on the Science of Global Environmental Change (1992). He serves in many Scientific Councils of Research Institutes and in advisory boards of industries and ministries. He is the instigator of the creation of the Milutin Milankovitch Medal of the European Geophysical Society/Geosciences Union in 1993 and of the American Geophysical Union Climate Medal which was named Roger Revelle in 1992. He was and continues to be invited to lecture in many universities and to deliver papers in specialized symposia.

He is the author of "Le Climat de la Terre, un passé pour quel avenir ?", has edited 15 books on climatic variations and has published more than 300 papers on this subject. He is editorial board member of The Holocene, Climate Dynamics and Earth and Planetary Science Letters. He was editor of EOS for Atmospheric Sciences, associate editor of Surveys in Geophysics and Atmospheric Environment and board member of Climatic Change. His main research is about modeling climatic changes at the geological time scales. He has made notable contributions to the astronomical theory of paleoclimates. The climate model that he has developed with his team is also used for simulating the response of the climate system to human activities and the possible impacts on the natural course of climate at the geological time scale. It is acknowledged to be the first model of intermediate complexity having been created.

André Berger is a cited pioneer of the interdisciplinary study of climate dynamics and past climate history. He has been ennobled by His Majesty Albert II, King of the Belgians, with the title of Chevalier (Sir), received the title of Officier de la Légion d'Honneur from the President of France and is Grand Officier de l'Ordre de Leopold in Belgium.

March 2017