Bert Bolin. Credit: Mia Åkermark, Orasis Foto / STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

Bert Bolin, who helped to create the Nobel-prizewinning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and served as its first chairman from 1988 to 1997, died on 30 December in Stockholm, aged 82.

A meteorologist by training, Bolin performed early work on the global carbon cycle. He later served in several science advisory roles to the Swedish government and as scientific director of the European Space Agency. Bolin helped to create the IPCC's structure of three independent working groups, and guided the publication of its first two reports in 1990 and 1995.

?He was not only an excellent scientist, he was a man of impeccable integrity,? says climate researcher Robert Watson, who succeeded Bolin as IPCC chair. ?It was his ability to chair in an objective fashion that gave the IPCC real credibility not only with the scientific community, but with the political community as well.?