WMO Professor Mariolopoulos Trust Fund Award
In 1996 the Foundation’s Board of Directors, following the painstaking efforts made by its Vice
President and current President, Professor C. Zerefos, and the then Secretary General of the UN
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Professor G.O.P. Obasi, opened a special account in
Geneva designated as: “WMO Professor Mariolopoulos Trust Fund Award”. This account is intended
to fund a Prize awarded under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of
the United Nations in memory of Academician Elias Mariolopoulos.
The establishment of this special Fund, as indicated in the proposal made by the Secretary General
of the World Meteorological Organization, Professor G.O.P. Obasi as well as in the resolution of
the Council of the World Meteorological Organization cited below, took place with the aim of
honoring Professor Mariolopoulos’ prominent contribution to modern Meteorology and Climatology,
especially in Greece. The Fund has set up a biannual international prize, starting in 1998, titled
“WMO Professor Mariolopoulos Trust Fund Award”. The prize is awarded to young scientists (up
to 35 years of age on the date of the publication submitted for the award) for a prominent study
regarding research in atmospheric sciences, published (or accepted for publication) in a scientific
journal with reviewers in the preceding two years. Studies which have already received an award
are not acceptable. The proposals and studies are submitted in one of the WMO’s formal languages
(English, French, Spanish and Russian) or in Greek. The studies that are not written in English are
accompanied by a translation in English.
On the Review Committee, which works with an international system of reviewers, there are eminent
scientists from the World Meteorological Organization, the European Union and the Foundation’s
Board of Directors. The Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization and other
eminent personalities are members of the Award Committee. The “WMO Professor Mariolopoulos
Trust Fund Award” is the first award of a United Nations Organization that is presented to honor the
memory of a Greek scientist.
Below is the relevant extract of the Executive Council of the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO):
Extract of paragraph 7.2.6 From the final Report of the 47th session Of the Executive Council Of the
World Meteorological Organization Geneva, 1996
WMO Professor Mariolopoulos Trust Fund Award
7.2.6 The Council noted with appreciation the proposal to establish a Trust Fund to commemorate the distinguished contributions of the late Professor Mariolopoulos to modern meteorology and climatology particularly in Greece, his native country. Beginning in 1996, the Trust Fund would provide every second year an award to stimulate research and understanding of the atmospheric environment. It was agreed that for this Trust Fund, the Secretary-General representing WMO would make the decisions concerning the evaluation of candidates and the utilization of financial resources (see Annex VI) in collaboration with the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation (MKF).
This agreement was renewed for another 20 years in a contract signed between the Foundation
and the new WMO Secretary General Professor Petteri Taalas on February 23, 2016.
Gold Medal of Excellence of the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis foundation for the environmental sciences
The Foundation Board awards the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence to prominent personalities
who have predominantly contributed to the promotion of Environmental Sciences.
The Gold Medal of Excellence bears a representation of the mythical Europe on a bull as she is
depicted on a medal that comes from the so-called treasure of Abouquir or Alexander the Great’s
treasure (Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki).
- In May 1996, during the ceremony in which the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry winner, Professor P.J. Crutzen was nominated as an Honorary Doctor of the Physics Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Foundation honored the Nobel winner with the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence. The Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence was presented by the late Academician Professor P. Theocharis, President of the National Commission for the Study of Global Change (IGBP) of the Academy of Athens, on behalf of the Foundation.
- In December 1997 the International UNESCO Conference was held in Thessaloniki. During the event, the Foundation and the Balkan Environmental Research and Development Institute (ΒΕRDI) of the Balkan Physical Union (BPU) awarded the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence to the Secretary General of the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Professor G.O.P. Obasi.
- On April 19, 2000 there was held the ceremony of the celebration for the 20 years since the establishment of the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During the ceremony, the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation awarded the late professor of the University of Oslo, Ivar S. A. Isaksen with the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence. The Gold Medal of Excellence was presented by the Vice Chairman of the Foundation and Director of the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Professor C. Zerefos.
The late Academician P. Theocharis presents Professor P.J. Crutzen (Nobel of Chemistry, 1995) with the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence.
Professor C. Zerefos presents the Secretary General Professor G.O.P. Obasi with the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence.
The Vice Chairman of the Foundation and Director of the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Professor C. Zerefos presents the late Professor I.S.A. Isaksen with the Foundation’s Gold Medal of Excellence.
Other special awards
In memory of the late Professor of the National Technical University of Athens at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Ioannis Ziomas, the Board of the Mariolopoulos-Kananginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences and the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki decided to present an award to a young scientist who was selected among those who participated as first authors at the COMECAP 2018 Conference. For this reason, a selection committee was set up by Christos Zerefos, Academician, Panagiotis Nastos, Professor at University of Athens and Chairman of Hellenic Meteorological Society (HMS), and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Professors Alcibiades Bais, Demetrios Melas and Demetrios Balis. The selection committee decided that the award be shared by the following young scientists:
- George Proias, for his research paper titled “Temporal evolution of PM10 concentrations in the city of Volos”,
- Nicholaos Siomos, for his research paper titled “Aerosol classification based on the synergy of Brewer spectrophotometer and sun photometer measurements”.
Τable of scientists awarded with the WMO professor mariolopoulos trust fund award (1998-2018)
| Year | Name/Country | Title of the awarded publication |
| 1998 | W. Steinbrecht/ Germany | Correlations between tropopause height and total ozone: Implications for long-term changes – JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, (1998) |
| 2000 | G. Myhre/ Norway | New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases – GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, (1998) |
| D. Balis/ Greece | Study of the structure of the lower troposphere over Athens using a backscattering LIDAR during the MEDCAPHOT-TRACE experiment: Measurements over a suburban area – ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT, (1998) | |
| 2002 | Francois Gheusi/ France | Lagrangian description of airflows using Eulerian passive tracers – Q. J. R. METEOROL.SOC. (2002) |
| Boyan Iliev Tatatov/ Bulgary | Experimental determination of the multiple-scattering effect on the lidarsignal polarization characteristics during liquid-and solid-phase precipitation – APPL. PHYS. B: LAZERS AND OPTICS, (2001) | |
| 2004 | Amna Jrrar/ UK | The dynamically-driven long-term trend in stratospheric ozone over northern middle latitudes-Q. J. R. METEOROL.SOC. (2002) |
| Michal Strizik/ Czech | Remote sensing detection of atmospheric pollutants by differential absorption LIDAR 510M/SODAR PA2 mobile system-METEOROL ATMOS PHYS (2004) | |
| 2006 | Jeffrey Robert Knight/ UK | A signature of Persistent Natural Thermohaline Circulation Cycles in Observed Climate-AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, (2005) |
| N. Christidis/ UK | Detection of Changes in Temperature Extremes During the Second Half of the 20th Century – GEPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, (2005) | |
| 2008 | Sabine Wust/ Germany | Non- linear resonant wave-wave interaction (triad): Case studies based on rocket data and first application to satellite data – J. of ATMOSPH. AND TERR. PHYS. (2006) |
| Noureddine Semane/ France | An observed and analysed stratospheric ozone intrusion over the high Canadian Arctic UTLS region during the summer of 2003 – Q. J. R. METEOROL.SOC., (2007) | |
| 2010 | P. Tunved/ Sweden | The natural aerosol over Northern Europe and its relation to anthropogenic emissions-implications of important climate feedbacks – TELLUS B (2008) |
| J. Kyselý/ Chech Republic | Recent severe heat waves in central Europe: how to view them in a long-term prospect? – INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, (2009) | |
| D. Belušić/ Croatia | Can mesoscale models reproduce meandering motions? ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, (2010) | |
| 2012 | T. Mauritsen/ Germany | An Arctic CCN-limited cloud-aerosol regime – ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, (2011) |
| X. Yang/ China | Observed surface warming induced by urbanization in east China – JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, (2011) | |
| 2014 | D. Konsta/ Greece | A process oriented characterization of tropical oceanic clouds for climate model evaluation, based on a statistical analysis of daytime A-train observations – CLIM. DYN. (2012) |
| 2016 | N. Yuan/ China+Germany | Detrended Partial-Cross-Correlation Analysis: A New Method for Analyzing Correlations in Complex System – NATURE SCIENTIFIC REPORTS (2015) |
| R. Eade/ UK | Do seasonal to decadal climate predictions underestimate the predictability of the real world? – GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS (2014) | |
| 2018 | Jianfei Peng/ USA-China | Markedly enhanced absorption and direct radiative forcing of black carbon under polluted urban environments – PROC. NATL. ACAD. SCI. (2016) |
| Young-Ha Kim/ South Korea | Contributions of equatorial wave modes and parameterized gravity waves to the tropical QBO in HadGEM2 – JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH : ATMOSPHERES (2015) | |
| 2020 | Shingirai S. Nangombe/ Zimbabwe | Record-breaking climate extremes in Africa under stabilized 1.5°C and 2°C global warming scenarios – NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE (2018) |
| Francesco Pausata/ Canada | Greening of the Sahara suppressed ENSO activity during the mid-Holocene – NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2017) | |
| 2022 | George Varlas/ Greece | Investigating the impact of atmosphere–wave–ocean interactions on a Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone |
| Kaspar Daellenbach/ Switzerland | Sources of particulate-matter air pollution and its oxidative potential in Europe | |
| 2024 | Sahil Sharma/ South Korea | Future Indian Ocean warming patterns |
| Julia Mindlin/ Argentina | Plausible Drying and Wetting Scenarios for Summer in Southeastern South America |