Julian Charles Roland Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton (born 5 September 1941) is a British

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

who was Director General and Chief Executive of the British

Meteorological Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope ...

from 1992 to 1997. He was made a Life peer of the Labour Party by

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

in 2000 where he sat until 30th October 2021. He was the leader on the Labour group of

Cambridge City Council Cambridge City Council is a district council in the county of Cambridgeshire, which governs the City of Cambridge. History Cambridge was granted a Royal Charter by King John in 1207, which permitted the appointment of a mayor. The first recorde ...

in the 1970s.

Life

Hunt is the son of diplomat Roland Hunt and Pauline Garnett. The Hunt family were

goldsmith A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made silverware, platters, goblets, decorative and servicea ...

s and

silversmith A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exactly synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product may vary grea ...

s in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; John Samuel Hunt (1785–1865) being in business with his uncle-by-marriage,

Paul Storr Paul Storr (baptised 28 October 1770 in London – 18 March 1844 in London) was an English goldsmith and silversmith working in the Neoclassical style, Neoclassical and other styles during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Hi ...

; also descended from John Samuel Hunt was

John Hunt, Baron Hunt of Fawley John Henderson Hunt, Baron Hunt of Fawley, (3 July 1905 – 28 December 1987) was a British general practitioner (GP) who, in 1952, co-founded the College of General Practitioners. In 1967 the royal prefix was approved and the college was renam ...

. Hunt is Professor of

Climate modelling Numerical climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the important drivers of climate, including atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the ...

in the Department of Space and Climate Physics and Department of Earth Sciences at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Hunt was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and went on to study Mechanical Sciences at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he is now a fellow, and gained a first class honours degree in 1963. In 1967 he was awarded a PhD on Aspects of

Magnetohydrodynamics Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also called magneto-fluid dynamics or hydromagnetics) is the study of the magnetic properties and behaviour of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such magnetofluids include plasmas, liquid metals, ...

from Cambridge. In 1989, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. Hunt was created a life peer as Baron Hunt of Chesterton, Chesterton in the

County of Cambridge Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

shire on 5 May 2000. He is the father of historian and former Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central,

Tristram Hunt Tristram Julian William Hunt, (born 31 May 1974) is a British historian, broadcast journalist and former politician who has been Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2017. He served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Sto ...

, medical doctor Matilda and journalist and novelist Jemima Hunt. Hunt is the great-nephew of noted meteorologist Lewis Fry Richardson.

Meteorological Office

He followed Sir John Houghton as Director-General and Chief Executive of the

in 1992, consequently being elected to the Executive Committee of the

World Meteorological Organisation The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internat ...

. In 1997 he left the Met Office and was replaced by Peter Ewins. In recent years he has warned that the pattern of Asian

monsoons A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscill ...

could be fundamentally altered unless there is a concerted effort to check

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...

in the area. He is chairman of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants Ltd.

References

External links

Julian Hunt , UK Parliament

Julian Hunt , Royal Society

Julian Hunt , The Guardian

Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 1 May and 3 June 2009 (video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Julian 1941 births Living people British climatologists British meteorologists Companions of the Order of the Bath Hunt of Chesterton Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Academics of University College London People educated at Westminster School, London Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People from Chesterton, Cambridge Life peers created by Elizabeth II