Rate My Professor Nicolas Bellouin

Professor Nicolas Bellouin is Professor of Climate Processes in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where he advanced from Lecturer (2012-2015) to Associate Professor (2015-2020) and full Professor (2020-present). Previously, he was a climate research scientist, promoted to senior scientist in 2008, at the Met Office Hadley Centre's Climate Chemistry and Ecosystems and Earth System and Mitigation Studies teams (2004-2012). Since 2021, he has been seconded to Institut Pierre Simon Laplace at Sorbonne Université as Chair in Aviation and Climate, leading the Climaviation research project. His academic background includes a PhD in Atmospheric Radiation from Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille (2003), MSc in Lasers, Molecules, and Atmospheric Radiation from USTL (2000), and BSc in Physics from USTL and Université Laval, Québec (1999).

Bellouin's research specializations encompass aerosol radiative forcing of the climate system from satellite observations and global modelling, the role of aerosols in the Earth System coupling with atmospheric chemistry, cryosphere, ocean, and land surfaces, atmospheric radiative transfer and remote sensing, and climate impacts of aviation focusing on non-CO₂ effects. He has led projects including Climaviation, AEROPLANE, and CleanCloud, was PI for the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service on Climate Forcing (2016-2020), and contributed to UK Earth System Model development (2013-2021). He has supervised PhD students such as James Mollard and postdoctoral researchers including Velle Toll, Ross Herbert, and Lydia Hill. Notable awards include the 2024 Institute of Physics Edward Appleton Medal and Prize for pioneering satellite observations and simulations quantifying aerosol climate impacts, and Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher status (2017-2020). He served as Lead Author for Chapter 3 Human Influence on the Climate System in IPCC AR6 Working Group I. Key publications feature Bounding global aerosol radiative forcing of climate change (Reviews of Geophysics, 2020), Weak average liquid-cloud-water response to anthropogenic aerosols (Nature, 2019), and contributions to Global Carbon Budget 2024 (Earth System Science Data). With over 67,000 citations and an h-index of 73 on Google Scholar, his work has advanced comprehension of aerosol-climate interactions.