Leonardo da Vinci Medal 2015

 

 

 

                           Professor Jean Jouzel

 

                                       Member of the Bureau of the International Panel for Climate Change

D                                     Director of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (2001-2008)

                                      Co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace (2007)

                                             Vetlesen Prize 2012 by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

 

 

 

 

 

 

In recognition for his outstanding lifelong achievement on isotopic chemistry and climate sciences. He promoted the use of water stable isotopomers for reconstructing past climate changes from ice cores and with associated atmospheric modelling using both dynamically simple and General Circulation Models (GCMs). He has actively participated in major ice core international projects and had key contributions to various aspects of the modelling of water isotopomers, with recognized international leadership on both sides. He is one of the most famous climatologists at world scale.

 

 

 

"Climate changes on planet Earth: from the past to the present and the future"
 

 

Since the eigthties, studies of past climate have provided a wealth of information directly relevant to its evolution in the future. These results include, in particular, the discovery of a link between greenhouse gases and climate in the past and the characterization of rapid climate changes. They are, for example, based on the analysis of deep ice cores such as drilled at the Vostok site and Dome C sites en East Antarctica, which allow us to describe the evolution of the Antarctic climate and of the atmospheric composition over more than 800000 years and in central Greenland which provide a very detailed description of the rapid climate changes that have punctated the last glacial period and the following climatic transition. These past climate changes, also documented from the analysis of oceanic and continental records, are of the highest interest for the climate modelling community. Focusing on deep ice core results, based on studies in which French teams are deeply involved, I will illustrate how past climate changes are key to better understand climate processes and climate variability, and thus climate evolution from the past to the future. I will then discuss this future evolution as projected by climate models for different scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions and the associated impacts. I will examine both the «emitting» scenario which leads to global warming above 4°C at the end of this century and the «low carbon» scenario which allows to keep long-term global warming below 2°C with respect to pre-industrial climate. The last part of the presentation will deal with the Climate Conference which will start at the end of next month in Paris.