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Bert Richard Johannes Bolin (1925–2007)

Basic Information

  • Full name: Bert Richard Johannes Bolin
  • Born: 15 May 1925, Nykoping, Sweden
  • Died: 30 December 2007 (aged 82), Osterskar, Sweden (stomach cancer)
  • Nationality: Swedish
  • Fields: Meteorology, numerical weather prediction, atmospheric chemistry, climate science
  • Buried: Sweden

Family Background

  • Father: Richard Bolin – a teacher who was interested in weather phenomena and inspired his son toward meteorology
  • Mother: Also a teacher
  • Both parents encouraged young Bert’s scientific curiosity

Marriages:

  1. Ulla Frykstrand – divorced 1979. Three children: Dan, Karina, Goran.
  2. Monica (surname not confirmed in sources) – his companion in later years; was with him when the IPCC Nobel Peace Prize ceremony was broadcast in 2007.

Education

Early Interest in Meteorology

In 1942, at age 17, Bolin visited the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) headquarters with his father, where he met the distinguished physicist Anders Angstrom. This visit confirmed his interest in atmospheric science.

Formal Education

  • University of Uppsala – studied mathematics and physics (1943–1946); attended Professor Hilding Kohler’s lectures in meteorology; awarded B.Sc. (1946)
  • Stockholm, International Meteorological Institute (IMI) – M.Sc. degree (1950), working under Carl-Gustaf Rossby
  • Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton – spent 1950–1951 working with Jule Charney, Joseph Smagorinsky, Norman Phillips, and John von Neumann on the first computerised weather forecasts
  • Stockholm University – Ph.D. in meteorology (1956); thesis on the interaction between wind and pressure fields and its application to numerical weather prediction

The Rossby Connection

During a year of military service in Stockholm in 1947, Bolin came into contact with Professor Carl-Gustaf Rossby, who had recently returned from the United States to build up Swedish meteorology. Rossby, the towering figure in mid-century atmospheric science, recognised Bolin’s talent and recruited him to the International Meteorological Institute. This meeting shaped the rest of Bolin’s career.

Rossby advised Bolin to broaden his interests beyond pure weather forecasting toward atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemical cycles – advice that would prove prophetic, steering Bolin toward the carbon cycle work that became his most lasting scientific legacy.

Career Timeline

Period Position Institution
1947 Military service; first meeting with Rossby Stockholm
1950–1951 Visiting researcher (ENIAC forecasts) IAS Princeton / University of Chicago
1952–1957 Executive Editor of Tellus Stockholm
1956 Ph.D. defence Stockholm University
1957 Acting director of IMI (after Rossby’s sabbatical, then sudden death) Stockholm
1958–1983 Editor-in-Chief of Tellus Stockholm
1961–1990 Professor of Meteorology (first holder of permanent chair) Stockholm University
1964 First Chairman, ICSU Committee on Atmospheric Sciences International
1965–1967 Scientific Director European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), Paris
1967 Chairman, Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) planning Skepparholmen conference
1985 Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases International
1988–1997 First Chairman, IPCC International
1988 Co-founder Stockholm Environment Institute

Major Scientific Contributions

1. Participation in the ENIAC Forecast (1950)

During his year at Princeton (1950–1951), Bolin worked alongside Jule Charney and the IAS meteorology group on the pioneering ENIAC weather forecasts – the first computerised weather predictions in history. This experience gave him first-hand knowledge of numerical weather prediction from its very inception.

2. Numerical Weather Prediction in Sweden (1954)

After returning to Stockholm, Bolin became a key contributor to the Swedish NWP effort led by Rossby. Using the BESK computer (Binar Elektronisk SekvensKalkylator) – which was for a time the fastest computer in the world – the team developed a barotropic forecasting model.

Starting in December 1954, the Royal Swedish Air Force Weather Service began producing routine real-time numerical weather forecasts for the North Atlantic region three times a week. These were among the first operational NWP forecasts anywhere in the world. Bolin published “Numerical forecasting with the barotropic model” in Tellus (1955) and “An improved barotropic model” in Tellus (1956), work directly related to his Ph.D. thesis.

His Ph.D. defence was impressive enough that faculty opponent Professor Norman Phillips of Princeton wrote: “Mr Bolin’s defence of his thesis must be considered as extremely competent. He not only demonstrated a complete comprehension of the relevant physical and mathematical ideas, but was also able to present them in an extremely logical and convincing fashion.”

3. Carbon Cycle Research (1950s onward)

Following Rossby’s advice, Bolin turned to atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemical cycles. In 1959, with Erik Eriksson, he predicted how atmospheric CO2 concentrations would increase by the year 2000 – a remarkably accurate forecast made before any significant documented increase had been observed.

Key carbon cycle publications:

  • “On the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the sea” (Tellus, 1960)
  • “Changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere and the sea due to fossil fuel combustion” (1959)
  • “Changes of land biota and their importance for the carbon cycle” (Science, 1977)
  • The Global Carbon Cycle (SCOPE report, 1979)

4. Leadership of the IPCC (1988–1997)

When WMO and UNEP established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, Bolin was appointed its first Chairman. He served for nearly a decade, overseeing:

  • First Assessment Report (1990) – helped lay the groundwork for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992)
  • Second Assessment Report (1995) – informed the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol (1997)

Bolin was credited with bringing together a diverse range of views among the panel’s approximately 3500 scientists into something resembling a consensus – a diplomatic achievement as much as a scientific one.

5. Final Book

His last major work, A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was published by Cambridge University Press in November 2007, just weeks before his death. It provides an insider’s account of the intricate interplay between science and politics in the climate debate.

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize jointly to the IPCC and Al Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.” Bolin was too ill to travel to Oslo for the ceremony. He watched the proceedings from home with his wife Monica and later telephoned both Gore and IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri to offer congratulations.

His final published piece appeared three days after his death. Its title, “Serious but not hopeless,” captured his enduring message about the climate crisis.

Honours and Awards

  • International Meteorological Organization Prize (1981)
  • Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal (1984) – the American Meteorological Society’s highest honour, named after his mentor
  • Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (1988)
  • Korber European Science Prize (1990)
  • Milutin Milankovic Medal (1993)
  • Blue Planet Prize (1995)
  • Global Environment Facility Leadership Award (1999)
  • Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (from 1962)
  • Member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences (from 1975)
  • Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Personal Characteristics

Colleagues identified several qualities that explained Bolin’s extraordinary influence: solid scientific credibility, intellectual breadth spanning atmospheric and ocean sciences plus biogeochemistry, an ability to synthesise complex information, diplomatic skill in bridging scientific and political communities, and a deep commitment to applying research practically to policy.

He supervised approximately 10 Ph.D. students, including Paul Crutzen (who went on to win the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on stratospheric ozone), Henning Rodhe, and Bo Doos.

Legacy

The Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University was named in his memory in 2008. It remains a leading centre for interdisciplinary climate research.

Connections to Others in the NWP/Computing Story

  • Carl-Gustaf Rossby – mentor and supervisor; Bolin succeeded him as director of IMI after Rossby’s sudden death in 1957
  • Jule Charney – colleague at Princeton during the ENIAC forecasts (1950–1951)
  • John von Neumann – met at IAS Princeton; von Neumann’s vision of weather prediction as a computational problem shaped Bolin’s early career
  • Joseph Smagorinsky and Norman Phillips – fellow researchers at Princeton
  • Paul Crutzen – Bolin’s Ph.D. student who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  • BESK computer – the Swedish machine (modelled on von Neumann’s IAS machine) that Bolin’s group used for the 1954 operational forecasts

Sources

  • “Bert Bolin (1925–2007) – a world leading climate scientist and science organiser,” Tellus B, vol. 65, 2013. https://b.tellusjournals.se/articles/10.3402/tellusb.v65i0.20583 Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • “Bert Bolin – founder of the climate panel and world-leading scientist,” Stockholm University. https://www.su.se/english/about-the-university/cultural-heritage-and-history/the-history-of-stockholm-university/bert-bolin-founder-of-the-climate-panel-and-world-leading-scientist-1.531330 Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • “Bert Bolin – A World Leading Scientist and Science Organizer,” Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University. https://www.su.se/english/divisions/bolin-centre-for-climate-research/about-the-centre/about-us/bert-bolin—a-world-leading-scientist-and-science-organizer Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • Bert Bolin, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Bolin Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • “The Royal Swedish Air Force Weather Service Computes the First Routine Real-Time Numerical Weather Forecasting,” History of Information. https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2073 Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • “Early operational Numerical Weather Prediction outside the USA,” Anders Persson, Meteorological Applications, 2005. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1017/S1350482705001593 Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • Bolin, B., “An improved barotropic model and some aspects of using the balance equation for three-dimensional flow,” Tellus 8, 1956. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956.tb01195.x Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • Bolin, B., A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, 2007. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-the-science-and-politics-of-climate-change/0083C8B099669B85D0A6B8ED56D8B475 Accessed: 2026-04-03
  • WMO Obituary for Bert Bolin. https://wmo.int/media/magazine-article/obituaries-0 Accessed: 2026-04-03