Lennart Bengtsson is celebrating his 90th birthday

Bengtsson, a Swedish meteorologist and former director at the MPI-M, celebrated his birthday on July 5, 2025. Jochem Marotzke, managing director of the MPI-M, sent his heartfelt congratulations on behalf of the institute. "Bengtsson was instrumental in advancing climate modeling at the institute in the 1990s," Marotzke said. "His early work on climate variability also had an important influence on my own research and that of my department, among other things."

Lennart Bengtsson had studied at Uppsala University and completed his doctorate at Stockholm University. After the foundation of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in Reading (Great Britain) in 1976, he initially became head of the research department and deputy director, and from 1982 director. In 1990, he was appointed to the MPI-M, where he established a third department for “Theoretical Climate Modeling” in addition to the departments of Klaus Hasselmann and Hartmut Graßl. This converted the numerical weather prediction model of the ECMWF into an atmospheric circulation model suitable for climate simulations, which was given the name ECHAM. ECHAM was successfully coupled with various ocean components and used, among other things, in the calculations with which a group led by Gabi Hegerl and Klaus Hasselmann demonstrated the human influence on the climate at the end of the 1990s.

Bengtsson left the MPI-M after his retirement in 2000, but remained scientifically active, including as a professor at the University of Reading.

Further Information

Read more about Lennart Bengtsson's influence on the development of the institute in the focus 50 years of climate research at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Jochem Marotzke
Managing Director
jochem.marotzke@mpimet.mpg.de