Portrait of Xavier Fettweis
New 2022 Lecturers Honoured
Lecturer in the field of Climatology and Climate Modeling
Could you briefly describe your background, your research topics and your conception of university teaching?
Passionate about meteorology since I was a child, I continued my university education as a mathematician in 2000 at ULiège with a Diplôme d'étude approfondie (DEA) in climatology at the UCLouvain. In 2001, I started a PhD on the melting of the Greenland polar ice cap using the MAR regional climate model at UCLouvain; I defended my thesis in 2006. Back to ULiège since September 2007 in Prof. Erpicum's team, I continued my work on Greenland climate modelling at the Laboratoire de Climatologie, which I am now leading since 2017, first as a FNRS qualified researcher, then as a FNRS senior researcher in 2021 and finally as a lecturer since 2022.
I coordinate the development of the MAR model used to study the melting of the polar ice caps as well as climate change and weather in Belgium. Finally, I have developed a classification of weather types to study recent changes in atmospheric circulation in the Arctic and wind patterns in Europe.
The current climate crisis entrusts all climatologists with a very important role in educating students on these climate issues because they will be the actors of tomorrow who will have to deal with them. I am happy to pass on my expertise on climate and weather in my undergraduate courses in Geography, which are also complemented by a MOOC on climate" accessible to all (the general public is also concerned). In the master's degree "Global Change" in Geography, I train my students in climate modeling (how to run the MAR climate model I develop) and analyze its outputs.
Thus, I value my climate model in my teaching, while training students to research in climatology. This training in climate modelling (unique) allows them to find a PhD funding in my team or elsewhere, because the demand for climate modellers is very high.
