Prof. em. Dr. Huw Cathan Davies

Huw C. Davies retired from his position as Professor of Atmospheric Dynamics at the ETH Zurich in 2009. He had held the professorship since 1982, and had served as head of the Institute for Atmospheric Science & Climate (1984-87; 1997-2002) and of the Department of Environmental Sciences (2002-2004).

Prof. Davies was born in Wales on the February 5, 1944. He received his BSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Wales in 1965, and the DIC of Imperial College and a doctorate from the University of London in 1968. Prior to taking up his professorial appointment at the ETH he was a Lecturer at the University of Reading in England and a National Academy of Science Researcher at NASA Langley, Va. in the USA.

His research focuses on the dynamics of weather-related flow phenomena, numerical weather prediction, atmospheric transport processes, and the linkage between weather systems and climate variability. It is pursued using an amalgam of theoretical and numerical model studies, and diagnostic analyses of reanalysis and field campaign data sets. The research is geared to advancing the understanding and prediction of atmospheric flow phenomena, and to improving our knowledge of the attendant physical processes.

Within Switzerland Prof. Davies was a founder member of the Swiss Academy of Science's Forum for Global and Climate Change (ProClim), a member of the Governmental Consultative Commission on Climate Change (OCCC), the head of the national research programme “Climate and the Environment in the Alpine Region”, a member of the Executive Board of National Competence Centre for Climate Research (NCCR), and a member of the Swiss National Research Council (1997-2007). Currently he is the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ETH-based Centre for Climate System Modelling (C2SM).

Internationally his activities include serving as President both of the International Commission for Dynamical Meteorology (1987-1991) and of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science (1999-2003). He has also served as a Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the international THORPEX Programme (2005-2007), and as a member of the Joint Committee of the World Weather Research Programme (2007-2009). He has been a council member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) of the UK (2005-2011), a member of the NERC’s Scientific and Innovation Strategy Board (2006-2009), and the chairman of the ‘Research Excellence Panel’ for the evaluation of the NERC Research Centres (2012-2013). In 2010 he was a member of the international scientific panel set up to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA. Currently he is the Chairman of the UK’s Meteorological Office Scientific Advisory Committee (MOSAC).

Prof. Davies was the recipient of an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, NZ (1998) and Sackler Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel (2005). He was elected a member of the Academia Europaea in 1990, became a Fellow of the IUGG in 2015, and also in 2015 was given an honorary doctorate at the University of Aberystwyth. In 2011 he was awarded the OBE for service to science in Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours list.