In Memoriam Dr Francis Bretherton (1935–2021) Trinity Research Fellow 1960–1962 Applied mathematician and climate scientist died in St. Louis, Missouri on June 27 2021. He was 85 years old.
FELLOWS, STAFF AN D ST U DEN TS
Francis was born in Oxford, England in 1935 to Russell and Jocelyn Bretherton. In 1953, he met his future wife, Inge, while he was an exchange student in Munich, Germany. They were married in 1959. After receiving his doctoral degree in fluid dynamics from the University of Cambridge, he became a Lecturer and Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, embarking on a career of pioneering research into geophysical fluid dynamics. In 1969, he moved to the Johns Hopkins University as professor of earth and planetary sciences. In 1973, he was asked to serve as president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and concurrently director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, positions he held until 1980. In 1983, he chaired an interdisciplinary committee of scientists to advise the US government on Earth-related research priorities. Two seminal reports by this “Earth System Science” Committee (1986 and 1988) presented a multidisciplinary vision of the Earth’s environment and climate as a set of interlinked components. The Committee’s recommendations led to a presidential initiative in 1989 to establish a still ongoing US Global Change Research Program. It also facilitated NASA’s development of an Earth Observing System from space. In 1988, Francis became director of the Space Science and Engineering Centre and Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work won him widespread recognition, including awards from the Royal Meteorological Society, the American Meteorological Society, and the World Meteorological Organisation. He mentored an impressive group of graduate students, who went on to influential careers of their own. Francis retired in 2001. He and Inge continued to live in Madison, while enjoying travel, classical music and the outdoors. In 2017, he and Inge moved to St. Louis to be closer to family. T R I N I T Y A N N UA L R ECOR D 2021 162
