The board of the Brazilian Society of Space Geophysics and Aeronomy hereby express the deepest regret at the passing of Dr. Barclay Robert Clemesha, 82 years old, researcher of National Institute of Space Research – INPE, the worldwide reference in upper atmosphere physics, while providing condolences to family and friends for the irreparable loss.
His academic career was described by Dr. Paulo Prado Batista
The SBGEA Board
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Barclay Robert Clemesha with his 80-year-old
After finishing his first degree at the University of London in 1957, Barclay Clemesha left his native England to work as an International Geophysical Year research assistant at University College Ibadan, Nigeria. Although he intended to return to work in the UK at the end of his eighteen-month contract, he has not done so.
After three years at Ibadan, working on the physics of the lower ionosphere, he moved to the University of Ghana, Accra, where he worked on F-region irregularities for 3 years. Working with a Radar he detected field aligned irregularities at equatorial region which only years after would be known as Equatorial Plasma Bubbles. In 1963 he moved to the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, where together with Geoffrey Kent and Ray Wright, he developed one of the first laser radars for atmospheric studies. He completed his Ph. D. at the University of the West Indies in 1968. While in Jamaica he participated of the First International Symposium of Equatorial Aeronomy in Peru and of the Second Symposium that took place at INPE, São José dos Campos, Brazil in 1966. There he knew Ida, at the time bilingual Secretary of the Symposium. They got married and after living in Jamaica to the end of 1968 they returned to Brazil and Dr. Clemesha started to work as Researcher at INPE and where he worked for the next 47 years.
His pioneering continued at INPE where he built the first Laser Radar (Lidar) of the Southern Hemisphere and measured Stratospheric Aerosols from 1969 to 1972. That time was also an era or great progress in Lasers Development and Dr. Clemesha built here at INPE an almost handmade Dye Laser used to measure Sodium, metal present in the upper atmosphere due to the incidence of meteors.
His interests in Physics of The Upper Atmosphere did not limited to Lidars, but has extended also to experiments on board of sounding rockets, Airglow, and also to the measurements of wind and temperature in the upper atmosphere. Besides a productive scientist, professor and advisor we have lost also a great human being.
