AWARDEE OF METEOROLOGY  PRIZE

LI ZECHUN

Abstract

Li Zechun was born  in June 1935, in Nanjing city of Jiangsu Province, China. He left school to work at the army's weather station in Shannxi Province in 1951. Several years later, Li entered Peking University to study meteorology in 1956, he completed his university studies five years later. Li conti-nued his study in the department of geophysics of Peking University and  gained a master's degree in 1966. At the same year, Li became a weather forecaster in Central Meteorological Observatory of China.
In the year 1983, Li Zechun was appointed the deputy director-general of National Meteorological Center (Central Meteorological Observatory of China). Two years later, he was promoted the director-general of National Meteorological Center, and he had worked at this position for more then ten years. During the time, he was graded researcher in 1987, awarded government allowance in 1991 and elected the academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1995.
During the period of early 1980s (the national sixth five-year programs),  as the general project technology executive, Li Zechun had taken charge of the construction of national short-range numerical weather prediction system which won first-class prize in national science and technology development in 1985.
In the late 1980's (the national seventh five-year programs),  Li Zechun was the general project technology executive too, he had been in charge of the research of national key scientific project for medium-range (3～10 days) numerical weather forecast. At the same time, he also had been  the chief commander of the Engineering Project (the construction expansion of National Meteorological Center) under State Development Planning Commission. The project had been designed and established the network of communication and computer system specialized for meteorological application. The project won the second-class prize in national science and technology development in 1995.
From 1990 to 1995 (the eighth five-year programs),  Li was the project executive, in charge of the research of national key scientific project and of the construction of numerical forecast system which won the second-class prize of national science and technology development, for typhoon and heavy rainfall severe weather observation and forecast.
All the products from the three programs mentioned above as guidance were distributed to national, provincial and regional weather stations for local weather forecast.
During the ninth five-year programs,  Li Zechun was in charge of the research of China Meteorological Administration's key project for the application of parallel computation to numerical weather forecast, and of transformations of scientific achievements from the eighth five-year programs.
Two years ago, Li began his research on the Chinese Academy of Engineering's project-meteorological problems on sustainable development of water resources, and presiding the research of meteorological problem of urban pollution of “973" basic science research program.