Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, 59, Dies; Linked Weather Disasters to Climate Change

Oct 23, 2021
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The dearth of peer assessment made some within the scientific group uncomfortable, Dr. Cullen stated. “We have been nonetheless making an attempt to persuade different scientists that this may very well be completed,” she stated, including that Dr. van Oldenborgh’s experience and management have been essential to gaining acceptance.

Dr. van Oldenborgh was born on Oct. 22, 1961, in Rotterdam. His father, Jan, was a lawyer; his mom, Wil Lijbrink, was a psychoanalyst. He studied in British Columbia earlier than receiving a grasp’s diploma at Leiden College within the Netherlands and a doctorate on the College of Amsterdam, each in theoretical physics.

He’s survived by his spouse, Mandy, and three sons, Elwin, Leon and Ingo.

Dr. van Oldenborgh got here to the meteorological institute in 1996 as a postdoctoral researcher. As much as that time his focus had been on particle physics, however on the institute he started to review El Niño, the recurring local weather phenomenon that impacts climate worldwide.

“Local weather analysis turned out to be way more suited to my character and provide extra prospects, because it was a more recent discipline and therefore it was less complicated to make vital contributions,” he stated in an interview final yr. “It was additionally a lot simpler to elucidate to the general public, and the solutions have been extra related for society.”

His early work on the institute included creating Local weather Explorer, a web based platform via which anybody can analyze local weather information. “It has been utilized by in all probability each meteorology or local weather science pupil on the earth,” stated Dr. Otto, who’s now a senior lecturer at Imperial Faculty London.

Dr. van Oldenborgh quickly turned taken with local weather extremes, stated Maarten van Aalst, the director of the Purple Cross Purple Crescent Local weather Heart, as a result of it was excessive occasions, slightly than gradual impacts like rising sea stage, that affected most individuals, significantly in poorer areas.

“It was altering extremes we have been taken with,” stated Dr. van Aalst, who first labored with Dr. van Oldenborgh within the mid-2000s. “There was mainly nothing on that within the literature.”

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