Arlette Vassy

Arlette Jeanne Vassy (, 28 January 1913 – 30 April 2000) was a French geophysicist. At the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), she became a senior researcher in 1954 She organised ozone observations in France during the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958. Vassy identified a hole in the ozone layer in 1961. In 1968, she became director of the Laboratoire de Physique de l'Atmosphère at the CNRS.

Biography

Early life and education Arlette Jeanne Tournaire was born on 28 January 1913 at Saint-Nexans, daughter of Jeanne (née Vitrac) and Pierre Tournaire. Her father was a highly qualified physics teacher. She studied physics at the Université de Paris where she graduated in 1935. taking his surname and the couple worked together for many years. During World War II, in 1941 she defended her doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne, exploring the absorption of light by the atmosphere. Her work was based on measurements taken at the Trappes and Mont Ventoux observatories.

Career Arlette Vassy was appointed research fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in 1942.

Working in conjunction with her husband, she determined the spectral range of the Chappuis bands in 1948. A year later, Arlette Vassy published Physique de l'atmosphère (Physics of the Atmosphere) in the Journal de Physique et du radium, in which she proposed using V-2 rockets to explore the upper atmosphere. She organised ozone observations in France during the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958.

From 1949, Vassy was scientific advisor for forty rocket launches from 1949. She witnessed and participated in the first scientific experiments using sounding rockets (such as the Véronique) to study the atmosphere.

Selected publications