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Secretary-General

Michel Jarraud was appointed Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization by Fourteenth World Meteorological Congress and took up his post on 1 January 2004. He was re-appointed by Fifteenth World Meteorological Congress for a second four-year term starting 1 January 2008.

Before joining the WMO Secretariat as Deputy Secretary-General in January 1995, Mr Jarraud devoted part of his career to the internationally renowned European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). He was appointed Deputy Director of the Centre in 1991, having been Director of the Operational Department since 1990. From June 1978 to December 1985, he was a researcher in numerical weather prediction at ECMWF. Mr Jarraud started his career with the French National Meteorological Service, Météo-France, as a researcher (September 1976-May 1978). He joined Météo-France again in January 1986 as Director of the Weather Forecasting Department, until December 1989.

Mr Jarraud is a scientist and a meteorologist with degrees from the prestigious French Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole de la Météorologie Nationale. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (USA), a member of the Société Météorologique de France, the Royal Meteorological Society (United Kingdom) and the African Meteorological Society, as well as an Honorary Member of the Chinese Meteorological Society and the Cuban Meteorological Society.

Mr Jarraud is fluent in French and English. He was born in 1952 in Châtillon-sur-Indre, France. He is married and is the father of two children.

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