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 In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

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 Roland Charles Colin Hunt (19 March 191624 March 1999) was a British diplomat. Son of Colin Bertram Hunt (1881–1967), of HM Inspectorate of Schools, and his wife Dorothea Mary (née Charles), Hunt was educated at two boarding schools: The Dr ...

and Pauline Garnett. The Hunt family were

goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), pl ...

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 great ...

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 and other styles during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His works range from ...

; 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 Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, 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 In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

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 Stoke ...

, medical doctor Matilda and journalist and novelist

Jemima Hunt The Honourable Jemima Hunt (born 1969) is a British journalist and novelist who has written for '' Esquire'', ''The Guardian'' and ''The Evening Standard'' amongst other publications. She is the author of the books ''The Late Arrival'' and ''Not ...

. Hunt is the great-nephew of noted meteorologist

Lewis Fry Richardson Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS (11 October 1881 – 30 September 1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of si ...

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 Internatio ...

. 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 oscil ...

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 lar ...

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