“A remarkable man with a deep sense of duty to public service,” that is how Stephen Belcher, the Met Office’s Chief Scientist, fondly remembers Professor Julian Hunt FRS, a former Director General and Chief Executive of the Met Office who has passed away.
Professor Belcher remembers: “Professor Hunt – Baron Hunt of Chesterton – was a brilliant academic and teacher. He had a great charisma and inspirited me to work in atmospheric science: first as my PhD supervisor and then as a collaborator and mentor for more than 25 years.”
Julian had a distinguished academic career at Cambridge as a lecturer and then professor in fluid dynamics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Lewis Fry Richardson, the forefather of numerical weather prediction, was his great uncle and influential in his early life.
Stephen Belcher added: “So it is not surprising that Julian’s research focussed on turbulence and dispersion in the atmosphere. He had a gift for seeing an important problem that needed to be solved, tickling out a mathematical solution that provided both insight and practical predictions.
“His swashbuckling presentations were always inspiring and entertaining in an otherwise rather formal Cambridge maths department. I recall him giving a presentation on ‘burbulence’ the turbulence produced by bubbles in water, or another time in a film for the Open University bellowing at the top of his voice in a windy field on atmospheric dispersion.”
In 1992 Julian moved to the Met Office – then based in Bracknell – to become Director General and Chief Executive. A post he occupied until 1997.
Julian was a very strong believer in international collaboration, and as Met Office Chief Executive he was the UK’s permanent representative to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). He used this position to argue vigorously for international data exchange, something central to the WMO’s mission today.
Stephen concluded: “Some of us were surprised by his appointment. His lively and irreverent style didn’t seem to fit with our picture of a civil servant of the time. But his personal charisma and authoritative scientific reputation enabled him to maintain and build the reputation of the Met Office as an authoritative voice providing operational services based on sustained investment in fundamental research.”
