Víctor M. S. Carrasco

ST Solar-Terrestrial Sciences

The 2022 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Víctor M. S. Carrasco for outstanding research in the field of space climate and solar physics.

Víctor Carrasco has developed his career in several scientific areas of geosciences such as atmospheric sciences, climate change, and mainly space climate. During his PhD, he analyzed thousands of sunspot observations made by astronomers since the beginning of the 17th century in Galileo’s time. Víctor Carrasco was thus one of the most active authors in the publication of the last revision of the sunspot group number database, in which the group number index is based. Furthermore, after obtaining his PhD, he carried out research visits at Southwest Research Institute (USA) and the University of Oulu (Finland) to collaborate in a new methodology to reconstruct the group number index. For these reasons, he was an invited member of the “International Space Science Institute” team whose objective is to recalibrate the sunspot number index.

Noteworthy are his works about the Maunder Minimum which have shed light on the presence of solar cycle and the activity level that occurred during this important period to understand the long-term behavior of the Sun and its influence on Earth. Carrasco has also participated in other works related to solar physics such as estimation of solar diameter from observations made in the last centuries, prediction of solar activity, and analysis of auroral events and geomagnetic storms. In addition, Carrasco obtained an invention patent related to astronomical observations. Víctor Carrasco is thus a worthy recipient of the EGU Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award.