Marcel Nicolet (1912–1996) was a Belgian physicist and meteorologist.
Nicolet was born in Basse Bodeux, Belgium on February 26, 1912.[1] He received a degree in phyisics in 1934 after writing a dissertation on the spectrum of O and B stars.[1] and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of Liège in 1937.[2]
After a few years as forecasting meteorologist he turned to the theory of ionized layers in the terrestrial atmosphere (fundamental book 1945). After World War II he met the most known colleagues at the meeting of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) at Paris 1946. He came to the United States first in 1950 where amongst other colleagues he met Bates with whom he published 4 fundamental papers. In the following decades he was often invited to the US but the Institut royal meteorologique de Belgique] remained his lifelong scientific home.
He became one of the main promoters of the International Geophysical Year,[2] that due to the participation of all important nations except China should become the most important worldwide scientific exercise of the 20th century. Nicolet became its secretary general. King Baudouin of Belgium granted him the title of Baron in 1987 for his important contribution to the success of the International Geophysical Year.