It is with great sorrow that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has learnt of the death of one its most distinguished contributors, Osvaldo Canziani, who passed away on 29 October 2015.
A renowned Argentinian meteorologist, Osvaldo Canziani was first involved in the IPCC in 1991 after his government nominated him to be his country’s representative on the Panel. During the Sixth Session of the IPCC that was held in Geneva in October 1991, Dr Canziani was elected as a Vice-Chair of Working Group II. In the years that followed he would go on to become one of the Co-Chairs of Working Group II and oversaw the production of the Working Group’s contributions to the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports.
His international career began in 1955 when he joined the International Civil Aviation Organization as an expert. In May 1968 he moved to Geneva, Switzerland where he joined the World Metrological Organization as a director of the organization’s Latin America regional office where he worked until July 1981.
At 92, Dr Canziani was still working as an international consultant on atmospheric and environmental issues and was involved in outreach efforts on climate change. He was vice-president of the Argentinean chapter of the Club of Rome and a member of the Executive Committee of Argentine Academy of Environmental Sciences. He was a professor at the National University of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Catholic University among others.
Canziani was a member of various national and international boards including the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Argentine Institute of Water Resources and the Argentine Society of Medicine for the Environment.
He was born in 1923 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He will be greatly missed by the IPCC family and the international climate change community.
Link to Dr Canziani’s biography (Spanish)