Honorary doctorates for two leading climate scientists

Utrecht University will award two honorary doctorates to leading climate scientists, Professor Corinne Le Quéré and Professor Sonia Seneviratne , during the celebration of the university's 387th Dies Natalis , or birthday, on 27 March 2023. With these honorary doctorates, Utrecht University honours their outstanding contributions to science, policy and society in the fight against climate change, which is the theme of this year's Dies Natalis. Corinne Le Quéré: Probing the oceans' limits. To assess future climate change, it is essential to have a complete picture of the global carbon cycle. Corinne Le Quéré's work is devoted to this. In 2007, she demonstrated for the first time that the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb excess carbon emissions was slowing down, implying that oceans would not be an endless sink to absorb CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere. Her discovery shed new light on the responses of the oceans and marine ecosystems to increasing greenhouse-gas emissions from human activities.