Buys Ballot Research School

The Buys Ballot Research School for Fundamental Processes in the Climate System was formally established in January 2000 and offers a structured and stimulating internationally oriented environment for the education of climate scientists. The research school has two full member institutes and several associated member institutes. Combined these institutes have about 60 PhD students and 15 Post docs.

The School is named after Prof. Buys Ballot, the famous Dutch meteorologist who founded the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in 1854 and played an important role in establishing a first international organization for meteorology.

Goal and mission

Climate change is a global issue that urgently requires a new generation of climate physicists trained at PhD level, with excellent communication skills and a critical attitude. The training of such PhDs is also highly relevant for national research institutes such as the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Deltares and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). These institutes, which have a broad and important task in our society, depend on a regular inflow of well-qualified climate researchers.

The importance of a research school in the area of meteorology and physical oceanography is evident. Human influence on climate and the environment has a structural character and it becomes more and more clear that this will lead to substantial changes in global and regional climate and the environment. Consequently the interest in climate has grown substantially in the past decade. This has led to a growing demand of the society on the climate research community to initiate impact and scenario studies on the potential environmental consequences of climate change. In order to understand how the climate system will respond to induced changes in the system, fundamental research on the physics and chemistry of the various components of the system (atmosphere, oceans, land and ice) and their mutual interactions is absolutely crucial.

The Buys Ballot Research School adds to the training of  PhD students to become climate scientists. The emphasis of the education is on the fundamental properties of the climate system.

The research has been subdivided in five research themes:

Educational programme

To achieve its goals the school has developed an educational programme consisting of a series of regular courses, symposia, summer schools, seminars and colloquia. The research school actively stimulates national and international co-operation in research and education, for instance by the exchange of students.

Symposia

  • BBOS Spring Symposium (2017)
  • BBOS Autumn Symposium (2016)

Seminars

  • Seminar "Ice and Climate"
  • Discussion meetings estuarine and coastal physics
  • Discussions on research in climate variability
  • Seminar "Large-scale dynamics of the atmosphere"
  • Seminar "Weather discussions"

Other activities

  • Ice and Climate excursion

Members

Full members (institutes)

Associate members (institutes)

Members (persons)

  • PhD-students and Post-Docs
  • Permanent scientific staff

Contact

Director: Prof. dr. M. Krol
IMAU secretariat,  phone: +31 30 2533275

Buys Ballot building

Front view of the Buys Ballot building.

Address

Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands

Telephone: +31 30 253 7540 (service point)

The entrance is located at the Victor J. Koningsberger building.

The university premises are smoke-free.

Open Buys Ballot building on Google Maps

Opening hours

Monday -
Tuesday -
Wednesday -
Thursday -
Friday -
Saturday
Sunday

In this building

  • Faculty of Science
  • Freudenthal Institute
  • Institute for Theoretical Physics
  • Study associations Science and Geosciences
  • Department Informatica

Facilities

  • Ground floor shower (room SN0007)
  • Cellar shower (room SNK008)
Getting there and Accessibility