Royal Meteorological Institute
In Dutch: Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut (KMI)
In French: Institut Royal Météorologique (IRM)
In German: Königliche Meteorologische Institut (KMI)
Go to a list of people tied to the Royal Meteorological Institute.
Contents
History
The roots of the Royal Meteorological Institute lie in the Royal Observatory of Belgium, where in 1897 the meteorology and astronomy department split off from each other to form, under the roof of the Observatory, a separate section with its own director. Finally, on 31 July 1913, the department became an independent institution under the name: Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMI). It is in charge of activities in the fields of climate, meteorology, geomagnetism, electricity in the atmosphere and the earth's soil. After World War I, director Jules Jaumotte expanded the existing departments and created new ones, including for research on theoretical and synoptic aerology. In 1956, the Centre for Geophysics was inaugurated in Dourbes. From then on the study of magnetism and atmospheric electricity takes place there.
Two years later, in 1958, the RMI moved into new buildings in Uccle. There are now also two new departments: an Atmospheric Chemistry and Airborne Radioactivity Department and a Computing Centre. The Computing Centre had a very powerful electronic computer for the time. This makes the RMI one of the first departments in the world to provide daily numerical forecasts. In the early 1960s, the Hydrology Section is launched. In the 1970s, the autonomous research group Diffusion and Air Pollution was created. In 1974, the three Uccle institutes ( the RMI, the Royal Observatory and the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy) pool their resources to set up a common computing centre, inaugurated in 1977.
Directors
| 1913-1919 | Jean Vincent |
| 1919-1940 | Jules Jaumotte |
| 1940-1951 | Alphonse Van den Broeck |
| 1951-1962 | Edmond Lahaye |
| 1962-1970 | Jacques Van Mieghem |
| 1970-1979 | André Vandenplas |
| 1979-1985 | Raymond Sneyers ad interim |
| 1985-2010 | Henri Malcorps |
| 2010- |
Website
Bibliography
- DUFOUR, L., DEFRISE, P., "Histoire de la météorologie en Belgique", in Ciel et terre, d. 97, 1981, p. 5-18.
- DUFOUR, L., "Les grandes époques de l’histoire de la météorologie", in Ciel et terre, d. 59, 1943, p. 355-359.
- DUFOUR, L., "Esquisse d’une histoire de la météorologie en Belgique, IRM, Miscellanées", in Ciel et terre, d. 87, 1971, p. 355-359.
- "Geschiedenis van het KMI", op de website van het instituut, geconsulteerd op 1/06/2017.
