Florence Rabier

Florence Rabier
Rabier speaks at the World Meteorological Organization in 2019
Born	1964 (age 59–60)
Alma mater	Université Pierre et Marie Curie École nationale de la météorologie Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University
Scientific career
Institutions	European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Météo-France
Thesis	Assimilation variationnelle de donnees meteorologiques en presence d'instabilite barocline (1992)

Florence Rabier (born 1964) is a French meteorologist who is Director-General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. She works on numerical weather prediction. She was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2014.

Early life and education

Rabier joined Météo-France as an undergraduate engineer in meteorology from the École nationale de la météorologie. After completing her undergraduate she joined the Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University, where she earned a master's degree in meteorology. She moved to the University of Paris (Pierre and Marie Curie University) for her doctoral studies, where she researched variations in meteorological data in the presence of barlocline instabilities. She became a senior scientist in 1998.

Research and career

Rabier held various positions at Météo-France, where she worked on numerical weather prediction. In 1997, she developed data assimilation methods to optimise the use of satellite observations in weather forecasting. In particular, Rabier worked on four dimensional variation methods. She was appointed Head of the Observation Section of Météo-France in 2001.

In 2003, Rabier was made Chief Engineer of Bridges and Roads. and General Engineer in 2013. She worked on the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), an instrument for European meteorological satellites. The IASI is an interferometer that permits the measurement of atmospheric and humidity profiles. IASI has been operating since 2007 and considerably improved operational meteorology. During the International Polar Year (2007-2008) Rabier was part of a field campaign over Antarctica.

Rabier moved to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in 2013, where she served as Director of Forecasts. In 2016 Rabier was appointed Director-General of ECMWF. She uses supercomputers to better analyse and forecast the weather.

She was Chair of the European Space Agency Advisory Committee on Earth Observations from 2021 to 2023.

Awards and honours

• 2014 Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
• 2014 Académie de l'air et de l'espace Grand Prix de l'Académie
• 2024 Académie des Technologies

Selected publications

• Florence., Rabier (1999). The ECMWF operational implementation of four dimensional variational assimilation Part I: experimental results with simplified physics. [European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts]. OCLC 60329137.
• Florence., Rabier (1997). The ECMWF implementation of three dimensional variational assimilation (3D-Var) : part II: structure functions. [European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts]. OCLC 60036222.
• Klinker, E.; Rabier, F.; Kelly, G.; Mahfouf, J.-F. (2000). "The ecmwf operational implementation of four-dimensional variational assimilation. III: Experimental results and diagnostics with operational configuration". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 126 (564): 1191–1215. Bibcode:2000QJRMS.126.1191K. doi:10.1002/qj.49712656417. ISSN 0035-9009. S2CID 121515305.
• Florence., Rabier (1994). Sensitivity of two-day forecast errors over the northern hemisphere to initial conditions. [European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts]. OCLC 59670065.
• Rabier, Florence (2005-10-01). "Overview of global data assimilation developments in numerical weather-prediction centres". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 131 (613): 3215–3233. Bibcode:2005QJRMS.131.3215R. doi:10.1256/qj.05.129. ISSN 0035-9009. S2CID 120330091.