Secretary-General Emeritus, World Meteorological Organization
Michel Jarraud is a Secretary-General Emeritus of the World Meteorological Organization, where he held the position of the Secretary-General from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2015.
He also served as Chair of UN Water from 2012 to 2016. Before joining the WMO Secretariat as Deputy Secretary-General in January 1995, Mr. Jarraud devoted part of his career to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). From 1978 to 1985, he was a researcher in numerical weather, then Director of the Operational Department in 1990, before being nominated Deputy Director of the Centre in 1991. Mr. Jarraud started his career with the French National Meteorological Service, Météo-France, as a researcher (1976-1978). He re-joined Météo-France again from 1986-1989, as Director of the Weather Forecasting Department.
Mr. Jarraud is a scientist and a meteorologist with degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole de la Météorologie Nationale. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, a member of the Société Météorologique de France, the Royal Meteorological Society and the African Meteorological Society as well as an Honorary Member of the Chinese Meteorological Society and the Cuban Meteorological Society. Most notable achievement under his leadership are among others: Nobel Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); WMO received the Montreal Protocol Partners Award; WMO and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) host the United Nations (UN) System Chief Executives’ Board (CEB). On 28 June 2016, Mr. Jarraud was nominated Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France, for his achievements in meteorological science and his mobilization of the international community in the fight against climate change.