About Bart van den Hurk

Bart van den Hurk has a PhD from Wageningen University on physical modelling the land surface component in the climate system. At the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute he worked on the development of national climate change scenarios and led the research section on weather and climate modelling. Since 2019 he works at Deltares as a senior climate expert. At VU University he occupies a part-time professor position exploring optimal formats to provide climate change information for societal decision processes. He has led a number of multi-disciplinary national and international research programs, and fulfills the function of Deltares Director of Research since 2021. Since 2023 he is appointed as IPCC co-chair of Working Group 2 in the 7th Assessment Cycle.

He coordinated European research projects on the assimilation of soil moisture data, climate services for the water sector, and the effects of global climate patterns on European socioeconomic impacts. He joined international expert teams in the fields of land–atmosphere interaction, the development of storylines to communicate climate change information, the analysis of compound events, and the application of forecast-based financing for preventive disaster response measures in developing countries. He has a large national and international scientific and public network and has regularly appeared in the media on topics such as climate and extreme weather.