Successful PhD Defence of Thomas Dethinne
The EOSystM lab is pleased to announce the successful PhD defence of Thomas Dethinne at the University of Liège on June 15, 2026.
His dissertation, “Improving Representation of Land-Atmosphere Interactions Using Remote Sensing and Climate Models: Insights from Model Coupling and Satellite Data Integration”, tackles a central challenge in climate science: how to better represent land–atmosphere interactions in climate models.
Supervised by Prof. François Jonard and co-supervised by Prof. Xavier Fettweis, the work explores different approaches, including satellite-data integration and model coupling, to improve the quantification and representation of land–atmosphere processes in regional climate modelling.
A key outcome of the thesis is a sensitivity analysis of the Modèle Atmosphérique Régional (MAR) to satellite-derived vegetation inputs, along with the development of the Regional Atmosphere–VEgetation uLiège model (RAVEL), which couples MAR with the dynamic vegetation model CARAIB.
The examination committee was composed of:
- Prof. Louis François (University of Liège)
- Prof. François Jonard (University of Liège)
- Prof. Xavier Fettweis (University of Liège)
- Dr Ghilain Nicolas (University of Liège / IRM)
- Prof. Kwinten van Weverberg (University of Gent / IRM)
- Dr. Christine Delire (Météo-France)
The EOSYSTM team warmly congratulates Dr. Thomas Dethinne on this great achievement and wishes him every success in the next chapter of his career.
