WMO Research Award for Young Scientists
The World Meteorological Congress established this prize for outstanding scientific research work in the field of meteorology in 1967. It was subsequently named the WMO Research Award for Young Scientists. The Executive Council has been granting the Award annually since 1970.
The aim of this Award is to encourage young scientists, particularly in developing countries, to undertake outstanding research work in all fields of meteorology and hydrology. The award has been granted to young scientists from more than 20 different countries.
Members are encouraged to continue to support the WMO Research Award for Young Scientists by submitting papers related to atmospheric science and hydrology.
Guidelines for WMO Research Award for Young Scientists
Purposes
The purpose of the WMO Research Awards is to encourage young scientists, preferably in developing countries, working in the fields of meteorology and hydrology.
Criteria for granting awards
- Each award shall be made for an outstanding scientific research paper;
- Awards shall be made to young scientists not exceeding the age of 35 at the time of nomination;
- Only one paper should be submitted for each candidate;
- Workers in all fields of meteorology and hydrology will be eligible, but members of the WMO Executive Council may not submit papers authored by themselves for the award;
- Awards to nominees from a Region may be divided. The award may also be divided between two co-authors provided that both meet the other criteria for the granting of the award;
- Only papers which have been published in scientific journals will normally be eligible for consideration, however, a summary of a successfully defended PhD thesis would also be acceptable;
- Papers published in languages other than the working languages of WMO will be eligible for consideration if accompanied by full translations in one of the working languages and an extended summary;
- Only papers published during the four-year period immediately preceding the year in which the nomination is made will be eligible for consideration;
- Papers that have previously won international prizes will not be eligible.
Method of submission of candidatures
- All Permanent Representatives of Members of a WMO regional association will be invited to submit nominations during a specified period in accordance with a schedule established by the Secretary-General. Preference, however, should be given to the nomination of young scientists coming from developing countries who have prepared their work there;
- Nominations, together with four copies of papers in a WMO working language (original or translation), a summary and a concise curriculum vitae should be submitted by the permanent representatives to the president of the regional association concerned through the WMO Secretariat before a specified time limit;
- The number of nominations submitted by each Permanent Representative should not exceed two.
Method of selection
- Each president of a regional association should nominate three persons as assessors who should be distinguished scientists normally resident within the Region and who will not be themselves eligible for the awards. The Secretary-General should obtain a list of regional assessors to facilitate this procedure;
- Each assessor should allot a mark to each paper which should be a digit in the range 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest) and submit these evaluations to the president of the regional association. The evaluation should be based on the following: significance of topic, novelty of ideas and methods, value of results and quality of presentation, with equal weight being assigned to each of these sectors. On the basis of the expert’s marks, the president of the regional association will forward to the Secretary-General the name of the candidate receiving the highest aggregate marks (if two candidates tie for top place, both nominations may be submitted);
- The final selection of the award winner or winners from among the candidates from all Regions will be made by a Selection Committee of not more than four members of the Executive Council, specially constituted for this purpose at its session immediately following the Congress;
- The nominations submitted by each Region, together with the original papers, will be provided to each member of the Executive Council Selection Committee by the Secretary-General at least two months before a session of the Executive Council;
- The Executive Council Selection Committee may not recommend an award if none of the papers submitted is of sufficiently high standard.
Nature of awards
The award will consist of a citation and an amount of US$ 1 000.
Awarding ceremony
The arrangements for the presentation of the award will depend in each case upon the prevailing circumstances and will be decided by consultation between the Permanent Representative who submitted the nomination and the Secretary-General.
List of Winners
| 2023 | Yan Yu (China) for the paper entitled "Enhanced dust emission following large wildfires due to vegetation disturbance” by Yu, Y., Ginoux, P. (Nature Geoscience 15, 878–884 (2022); doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01046-6) |
| 2022 | Tom Robin Andersson (UK) for the paper entitled “Seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasting with probabilistic deep learning” by Tom R. Andersson, J. Scott Hosking, María Pérez-Ortiz, Brooks Paige, Andrew Elliott, Chris Russell, Stephen Law, Daniel C. Jones, Jeremy Wilkinson, Tony Phillips, James Byrne, Steffen Tietsche, Beena Balan Sarojini, Eduardo Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, Yevgeny Aksenov, Rod Downie & Emily Shuckburgh (Nature Communications 12, 5124 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25257-4). |
| 2021 | Hoang-Minh Nguyen (Viet Nam) for the paper entitled “An approach for improving the capability of a coupled meteorological and hydrological model for rainfall and flood forecasts” by Hoang-Minh Nguyen and Deg-Hyo Bae published in the Journal of Hydrology, 577, 2019, 124014; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124014 |
| 2020 | B. Rohith (RA-II) for the paper entitled “Basin-wide sea level coherency in the tropical Indian Ocean driven by Madden–Julian Oscillation” by B. Rohith et al., published in Nature Communications, 2019, 10(1), 1257; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09243-5 |
| 2019 | Karin van der Wiel (The Netherlands) for the paper entitled “Rapid attribution of the August 2016 flood-inducing extreme precipitation in south Louisiana to climate change” by van der Wiel et al., published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences – 2017, DOI:10.5194/hess-21-897- 2017. |
| 2018 | Chang-Eui Park, Su-Jong Jeong, Manoj Joshi, Timothy J. Osborn, Chang-Hoi Ho, Shilong Piao, Deliang Chen, Junguo Liu, Hong Yang, Hoonyoung Park, Baek-Min Kim and Song Feng (Republic of Korea) for “Keeping global warming within 1.5 C constrains emergence of aridification” (Nature Climate Change, 8 (2018): 70-74, doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0034-4) |
| 2017 | Nick Dunstone (United Kingdom) for "Skilful Predictions of the Winter North Atlantic Oscillation One Year Ahead" (Nature Geoscience – October 2016, DOI:10.1038/NGE2824) |
| 2016 | María E. Dillon (Argentina), Yanina García Skabar (Argentina), Juan Ruiz (Argentina), Eugenia Kalnay (Argentina), Estela A.Collini (Argentina), Pablo Echevarría (Argentina), Marcos Saucedo (Argentina), Takemasa Miyoshi (Japan), Masaru Kunii (Japan) (co-authors) for "Application of the WRF-LETKF Data Assimilation System over Southern South America: Sensitivity to Model Physics" (AMS Online Journal) |
| 2015 | Amos P.K. Tai, Maria Val Martin and Colette L. Heald (all from USA) (co-authors) for "Threat to Future Global Food Security from Climate Change and Ozone Pollution" (Nature Climate Change, 27 July 2014, DOI 10.1038/NCLIMATE2317) |
| 2014 | Feng Chen, Yu-jiang Yuan, Fa-Hu Chen, Wen-shou Wei, Shu-long Yu, Xiang-jun Chen, Zi-ang Fan, Rui-bo Zhang, Tong-wen Zhang, Hua-ming Shang and Li Qin (all of China) (co-authors) for "A 426-year Drought History for Western Tian Shan, Central Asia, inferred from Tree Rings and Linkages to the North Atlantic and Indo–West Pacific Oceans" (SAGE, 2013, The Holocene 23(8) 1095–1104) |
| 2013 | Flavio Lehner (Switzerland) “The Freshwater Balance of Polar Regions in Transient Simulations from 1500 to 2100 AD using a Comprehensive Coupled Climate Model”, published in 2012 in the journal Climate Dynamics |
| 2012 | Yijian Zeng (China) "Numerical Analysis of Air-water-heat Flow in Unsaturated Soil: Is it Necessary to Consider Airflow in Land Surface Models?” published in the Journal of Geophysical Research (2011) |
| 2011 | Rudi van der Ent (Netherlands) "Origin and Fate of Atmospheric Moisture Over Continents", published in October 2010 issue of Water Resources Research (Vol. 46) |
| 2010 | Gabriella Szépszó (Hungary) "Transient simulation of the REMO regional climate model and its evaluation over Hungary", published in December 2008 issue of IDOJARASQuarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Juan José Ruiz ( Argentina) "Application of ensemble forecasts to weather prediction at short range over South America", thesis in 2008 for doctorate degree in Atmospheric Science and Oceans of the University of Buenos Aires |
| 2009 | Alex J. Cannon (Canada) "Probabilistic Multi-site Precipitation Downscaling by an Expanded Bernoulli-gamma Density Network", published in December 2008 issue of the Journal of Hydrometeorology |
| 2008 | Sun Ying (China) for "How Often does it Rain?" Mary-Jane Kgatuke (South Africa) for "The Internal Variability of the RegCM3 over South Africa" |
| 2007 | G. De Lannoy (Belgium) for "Assessment of Model Uncertainty for Soil Moisture through Ensemble Verification" Paola Salio (Argentina) "Mesoscale Convective Systems over Southeastern South America and their Relationship with the South American Low-level Jet" |
| 2006 | Walter Collischonn, Sidnei Gusmão Agra, Glauco Kimura de Freitas, Gabriela Rocha Priante, Rutinéia Tassi and Christopher Freire Souza (all from Brazil) (co-authors) for "Searching for an Ecological Hydrograph (Em Busca do Hidrograma Ecológico)" |
| 2005 | Xiao Cunde (China) for "Sea Level Pressure Variability over the Southern Indian Ocean inferred from a Glaciochemical Record in Princess Elisabeth Land, East Antarctica" Nedjelika Zagar (Sweden) for "Assimilation of Equatorial Waves by Line-of-Sight Wind Observations" |
| 2004 | A. Gahein (Egypt) for "Diagnostic Study on the Relation between Ozone and Potential Vorticity" N. Semane (Morocco) for "A Very Deep Ozone Minihole in the Northern Hemisphere Stratosphere at Mid-latitudes during the Winter of 2000" |
| 2003 | Z. Zhang, Y. Ding, and Z. Zhao (China) (co-authors) for "On Westerly Wind Bursts in Equatorial Western Pacific before and during the Onset and Initial Development Phases of ENSO" |
| 2002 | S.K. Satheesh (India) for "Characteristics of Aerosols over a Remote Island, Minicoy in the Arabian Sea: Optical Properties and Retrieved Size Characteristics" |
| 2001 | Xiaohong Liu (China) for "Modeling Study of Cloud Droplet Nucleation and In-cloud Sulfate Production During the Sanitation of the Atmosphere" |
| 2000 | Charles Koronie Gatebe (Kenya) for "Characterization and Transport of Atmospheric Aerosols at High Altitude on Mount Kenya" |
| 1999 | G. Bodeker (New Zealand) for "Trends and Variability in Vertical Ozone and Temperature Profiles Measured at Lauder, New Zealand" J.A. Aravequia (Brazil) for "The Role of Moist Baroclinic Instability in the Growth and Structure of Monsoon Depressions" |
| 1998 | Zhong Qing (China) for "The Formulation of Fidelity Schemes of Physical Conservation Laws and Improvements on a Traditional Spectral Model of Baroclinic Primitive Equations for Numerical Predictions" Russel E. Treadon (USA) for "Physical Initialization in the NMC Global Data-assimilation System" |
| 1997 | H.R. da Rocha (Brazil) for "A Vegetation-atmosphere Interaction Study for Amazonia Deforestation using Field Data and a Single Column Model" |
| 1996 | Christof Appenzeller (Switzerland) for "Wave Development on Surface Fronts and Stratospheric Intrusions" |
| 1995 | I. Csiszar (Hungary) for "The Effect of the Droplet Size Distribution on the Reflectivity of Boundary-layer Clouds" |
| 1994 | Du Jun (China) for "Numerical Study of the Rapid Cyclogenesis over Sea" and "On Ageostrophic Secondary Circulation of an Off-shored Cyclone over East China Sea" R.V. Bekriaev (Russian Federation) for "The Study of Mechanisms of Formulation of Quasi-stationary Regime of Atmospheric Circulation in Temperature and High Latitudes" |
| 1993 | Chong-yu Xu (China) for "Monthly Water Balance Models in Different Climatic Regions" |
| 1992 | no award |
| 1991 | Ebby Kamilla Anyamba (Kenya) for "A Diagnostic Study of Low Frequency Oscillations in Tropical Outgoing Longwave Radiation" |
| 1990 | Andrew Edwin Okeyo (Kenya) for "Towards the Model for Kenya" |
| 1989 | K. Pandzic (Yugoslavia) for "Principal Coponent Analysis of Precipitation in the Adriatic-pannonian Area od Yugoslavie" M.L. Saah (Cameroon) for "Caractéristiques Radioclimatiques de l'Atmosphère et des Pluies dans la Région du Cameroun" |
| 1988 | Silas Chr. Michaelides (Cyprus) for "Limited Area Energetics of Genoa Cyclogenesis" |
| 1987 | J.G. Papageorgiou (Greece) for "A 3-D Mesoscale Model of the PBL including Pollutant Dispersio" |
| 1986 | Leon Chan Quah (Malaysia) for "On the Asian Monsoon Heat Sources and Energetics" |
| 1985 | C.A. Sansigolo (Brazil) for "Measuremtn of Transpiration and Biomass in a Tropical Pinus Caribaea Plantation with Tritiated Water" |
| 1984 | R.S. Fouli (Meteorogical Authority, Cairo, Egypt) for "Generalization of Models of Planetary Boundary Layer" |
| 1983 | Yaya Coulibaly (Ivory Coast) "Local Evolution on Different Time Scales of Heat and Mass Fluxes at the Surface in the Tropical Zone" |
| 1982 | Laban J.A.J. Ogallo (Kenya) for "Time Series Analysis of Rainfall in East Africa" |
| 1981 | P.S. Salvekar (India) for "Role Development of Monsoon Disturbances" |
| 1980 | Lim Hock (Singapore) for "Barotropic Wave Motions in Rotating Fluids" |
| 1979 | Nadir Bassil Katerji (Syrian Arab Republic) for "Contribution to the Study of Actual Evapotranspiration of Winter Soft Wheat" |
| 1978 | A.L. Alusa (Kenya) for "The Role of Drop Breakup in the Development of Raindrop-size Distributions" Z.I. Janjic (Yugoslavia) for "Pressure Gradient Force and Advection Scheme used for Forecasting with Steep and Small Scale Topography" |
| 1977 | Antonio D. Moura (Brazil) "The Eigensolutions of the Linearized Balance Equations over a Sphere" |
| 1976 | A.K. Kamra (India) for "The Role of Electrical Forces in Charge Separation by Falling Precipitation in Thunderclouds" |
| 1975 | no award |
| 1974 | B.M. Misra (India) for "Planetary Pressure Wave of 4-5 day Period in the Tropics" D.E. Etling (Federal Republic of Germany) for "The Stability of an Ekman Boundary-layer Flow as Influence by the Thermal Stratification" A. Quinet (Belgium) for "The Structure of Non-linear Processes" |
| 1973 | G.W. Paltridge (Australia) for "A Model of a Growing Pasture" |
| 1972 | Ahmed Adel Hassan (Arab Republic of Egypt) for "Seasonal Distribution of the Horizontal Baroclinicty Component over Subtropical Africa and Mediterranean" |
| 1971 | no award |
| 1970 | no award |