Marie Corinne Lyne Le Quéré (born July 1966) is a Canadian scientist. She is Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

and former Director of

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is an organisation based in the United Kingdom that brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists to "research, assess and communicate from a distinct trans-disciplinary p ...

. She is the chair of the French High Council on Climate and member of the UK

Climate Change Committee The Climate Change Committee (CCC), originally named the Committee on Climate Change, is an independent non-departmental public body, formed under the Climate Change Act 2008, Climate Change Act (2008) to advise the United Kingdom and devolved G ...

. Her research focuses on the interactions between the

carbon cycle The carbon cycle is a part of the biogeochemical cycle where carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth. Other major biogeochemical cycles include the nitrogen cycle and the water cycl ...

and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

Education

Le Quéré received her B.Sc. in physics from

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

, an M.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

, and a Ph.D. in oceanography from

University of Paris VI Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

Personal and early life

Le Quéré was born in Quebec in 1966 and as a child spent her camping holidays in the national parks of Eastern Canada which fostered her interest in the natural world. She left high school in 1984 and enrolled for a course in general studies in a small university near to her home in

Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, directly across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region of Quebec and is also p ...

prior to transferring to the

to study physics. Le Quéré later became a British Citizen and holds both French and Canadian passports. She is now married to her second husband and has a daughter from her first marriage, Marianne, who she raised partly as a single mother. On 3 February 2023, Le Quéré was a guest on BBC's Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 (presented by

Lauren Laverne Lauren Cecilia Fisher (née Gofton; born 28 April 1978), known professionally as Lauren Laverne, is an English radio DJ, model, television presenter, author and singer. She was the lead singer and guitarist in the alternative rock band Kenicki ...

). As an imaginary

Castaway A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade kidnapping, captors or the world in general. A person may also be ...

she chose a mask and snorkel as her luxury items and, for her favourite disc, '' La Vida Es Un Carnaval by Celia Cruz.'' For her book, she chose

World Atlas of the Oceans The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

by Dave Monahan.

Career and research

She was co-chair of the Global Carbon Project (GCP) from 2009 until 2013. Within the GCP, she initiated and directed for over a decade the annual publication of the Global Carbon Budget. During 2014-2017 she has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Future Earth platform for sustainability research. She is author of the 3rd, 4th and 5th assessment reports of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World Met ...

. She conducted research at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in the US (1992–1996), at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany (2000–2005), and jointly between the UEA and the

British Antarctic Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of list of global issues, global issues, and to provide an active prese ...

in the UK (2005–2010).

Honours and awards

In 2012, Le Quéré was awarded the Claude Berthault award from the French Academy of Sciences, the first Copernicus medal of the Copernicus Gesellschaft e.V. in 2013/2014, and was the annual Bolin lecturer in Stockholm University in 2014. In 2015, she received a Blaise Pascal Medal for Earth and Environmental Sciences from the European Academy of Sciences and the Grande Médaille Albert 1er de Monaco, Science section. In 2016, Le Quéré was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

. In 2016, she was listed among the 20 "women making waves in the

climate change debate There are past and present public debates over certain aspects of climate change: how much has occurred in modern times, what causes it, what its effects will be, and what action should be taken to curb it now or later, and so forth. In the sc ...

" on the Road to Paris. In 2019, Le Quéré was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the

2019 Birthday Honours The 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as ...

for services to climate change science. In 2019, she also won the

Prince Albert I Medal The Prince Albert I Medal was established by Prince Rainier of Monaco in partnership with the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans. The medal was named for Prince Albert I and is given for significant work in the ph ...

and was made a of the French

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. In 2020, she received the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences for her interdisciplinary research on the interactions between climate change and the

Selected publications

A full list of Le Quéré's peer-reviewed publications can be found on her Publons profile. * Fossil CO₂ emissions in the post-COVID-19 era (2021). Le Quéré, C. et al., Nature Climate Change, 11, 197–199, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01001-0. * Temporary reduction in daily global CO₂ emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement (2020). Le Quéré, C. et al., Nature Climate Change, 10, 647–653, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x. * Global Carbon Budget 2020 (2020). Friedlingstein et al., 12, 3269–3340, https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/3269/2020/. * Drivers of declining CO₂ emissions in 18 developed economies (2019). Le Quéré, C. et al., Nature Climate Change, 5, 213-217, https://rdcu.be/bor0g. * Decadal trends in the ocean carbon sink (2019). DeVries, T., C. Le Quéré, et al., PNAS, 118, 11646-11651, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1900371116. * Role of zooplankton dynamics for Southern Ocean phytoplankton biomass and global biogeochemical cycles (2016). Le Quéré, C. et al., Biogeosciences, 23, 4111-4133, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4111-2016. * Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (2009). Le Quéré, C. et al., Nature Geoscience, 6, 831-836, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo689.

References

External links

The life scientific: Corinne Le Quéré on the global carbon cycle
BBC, 2019.
Inside the mind of a climate change scientist
TEDxWarwick, April 2019. {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Quere, Corinne 1966 births Living people Université de Montréal alumni McGill University Faculty of Science alumni Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni Academics of the University of East Anglia Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors Canadian climatologists Women climatologists Female fellows of the Royal Society Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights of the Legion of Honour Canadian expatriates in England Canadian fellows of the Royal Society