Climate Change Biographies

Published: December 10, 2009, 7:26 pm

Updated: May 7, 2012, 11:38 am

Topics:

	Svante August Arrhenius Svante August Arrhenius (1859–1927), a founding father of physical chemistry, was trained in both chemistry and physics. He began at the University of Uppsala, but then petitioned to work at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm instead, because he found the chemistry professors at the university rigid and uninspiring. His doctoral dissertation, presented in 1883, described his experimental work on the electrical conductivity of dilute solutions; it also contained... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies)
	Rosina Bierbaum Rosina Bierbaum is an ecologist who has played a leading role at the intersection of climate change science and policy. She has authored dozens of scientific reports and journal articles on climate change science and policy and has served as a scientific adviser to both the U.S. Congress and the White House. Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 2
	Guy Stewart Callendar Guy Stewart Callendar (1897-1964), a British steam engineer, was the first scientist to study climate change in a rigorous and systematic way and the first to empirically connect rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere with the increase in the Earth’s temperature. In 1938, Callendar published a paper titled The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and its Influence on Temperature, the first of many articles on the subject... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 3
	Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928) was a respected and influential American geologist and science educator who supported the concepts of multiple glaciation and planetesimal origin of the Earth, and was among the first to emphasize carbon dioxide as a major regulator of Earth's temperature. Chamberlin's dominant interest was glacial geology. Work with the Wisconsin Geological Survey and the USGS in the 1870-80s resulted in accurate mapping of the limits of glaciation in the United States... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 4
	Robert W. Corell Robert Corell is Director of the Global Change Program at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, and a Senior Policy Fellow at the Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society. He is currently actively engaged in research concerned with both the science of global change and the interface between science and public policy. He is particularly interested in global and regional climate change and related environmental issues, and in the science... Read More»
	James Croll James Croll (1821-1890) was a Scottish physical scientist who was the leading proponent of an astronomical theory of climate change in the nineteenth century. His fundamental insights into the interplay of astronomical and geological factors – into cosmic physics and climate dynamics – were extremely influential. In 1875 Croll published his major book, Climate and Time, a work delayed several years due to ill health, but a work widely admired for the profound impression it produced on geologists around the world. The leading geologist of his day, Charles Lyell, revised his Principles of Geology in response to Croll’s theory. Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 5
	Cesare Emiliani Cesare Emiliani (1922-1995), an Italian paleoceanographer who used Urey's oxygen isotope to discover that the temperature of the ocean and the ice masses on Earth changed through time in cycles and showed that these cycles could be recognized and correlated throughout the Atlantic. He is widely regarded as the father of paleoceanography. In 1948 he received the Rollin D. Salisbury Fellowship in the Department of Geology at the University of Chicago and obtained the Ph.D. in 1950... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 6
	Al Gore Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States (1993-2000), has played a leading role in communicating about the science, policy, and solutions related to climate change to large audiences around the globe. In 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for his work "informing the world about the dangers of climate change." Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 7
	Charles D. Keeling Charles D. Keeling (1928-2005), an American pioneer in the monitoring of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Widely recognized as the "Keeling curve", the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measurements, taken since 1958 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, constitute the longest, continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration recordings available in the world. These measurements are recognized as a reliable indicator... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 8
	Edward N. Lorenz Edward N. Lorenz (1917-), an American meteorologist noted for his pathbreaking descriptions of the transfer of energy in the general circulation of the atmosphere. His book, The Nature and Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere (1967) featured one of the first complete descriptions of atmospheric general circulation (Global-scale circulation of the atmosphere), including the equations governing atmospheric energetics. Computer programs and models developed later would use Lorenz's mathematical formulas... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 9
	Cesare Marchetti Cesare Marchetti (1927-), an Italian physicist and systems analyst noted for his path-breaking work in modeling long run patterns of energy substitution, carbon dioxide sequestration, and the production of energy from hydrogen. As a senior scientist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Marchetti developed the first mathematical models of the long run pattern of energy substitution in industrial economies, i.e., from wood fuel, to coal, to petroleum, to primary electricity (1975)... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 10
	Milutin Milankovitch Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958), a Serbian astrophysicist and geophysicist best known for his theory of ice ages, relating variations of the Earth's orbit and long-term climate change, now known as Milankovitch cycles. These ideas were derived from improved methods of calculating variations in Earth's eccentricity, precession, and tilt through time (1920s). Milankovitch also developed an astronomical climate theory around these proposed forcing functions... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 11
	Mohan Munasinghe and Mohan Munasinghe has postgraduate degrees in physics, engineeringeconomics, from Cambridge University (UK), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), McGill University (Canada), and Concordia University (Canada). Presently, he is Chairman, Munasinghe Institute of Development (MIND); Vice Chair, U.N. U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Geneva; Energy Advisor to the Govt. of Sri Lanka; and Visiting Professor, United Nations Univ., Tokyo. Highlights of over 35 years... Read More»
	Rajendra K. Pachauri Rajendra K. Pachauri is the founding Director of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and since 2002 has been the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. To acknowledge his immense contributions to the field of energy and environment, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 2001, one of India’s highest civilian awards... Read More»
	Gilbert N. Plass Gilbert N. Plass (1921-2004) was a Canadian-born physicist who made important early contributions to the carbon dioxide theory of climate change. He graduated from Harvard University in 1941, received a Ph.D in physics from Princeton University in 1947, and eventually became a professor at Texas A&M University. Between 1953 and 1959, Plass developed an early computer model of infrared radiative transfer and published a number of articles on carbon dioxide and climate... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 12
	Roger Randall Dougan Revelle Roger Randall Dougan Revelle (1909-1991), an American oceanographer best known for his pioneering studies of carbon dioxide balance in the oceans and its effect on climate change. In a seminal paper published in 1957, Revelle and Hans Suess argued that humankind was performing "a great geophysical experiment" and called on the scientific community to monitor changes in the carbon dioxide content of waters and the atmosphere as well as production rates of plants and animals... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 13
	Stephen H. Schneider Stephen H. Schneider (1945-), an American climatologist who pioneered three-dimensional climate modeling. Schneider is known for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, and Congressional testimony. He is the founding editor of Climatic Change, among the first journals to foster interdisciplinary inquiry into the totality of the problem of climatic variability... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 14
	Susan Solomon Susan Solomon is an Atmospheric Scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She completed her doctorate at the University of California in Berkeley, California, in 1981. Her research has focused on the role of atmospheric chemistry in climate dynamics. Specifically, she has conducted numerous investigations of photochemistry and of transport processes in the upper atmosphere (Atmosphere layers) (that is, the stratosphere and troposphere). Her most recognized work has involved remote sensing... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 15
	Hans E. Suess Hans E. Suess (1909-1993), an American chemist who developed an improved method of carbon-14 dating, which he used to document the profound effect that the combustion of fossil fuels had had on the Earth’s stocks and flows of carbon (1955). Fossil fuels are so ancient that they contain no carbon-14 (¹⁴C), so when combusted, the carbon dioxide (CO₂) they release dilutes the ¹⁴C content of both atmosphere and plants. This dilution is now known as the "Suess effect", and it unequivocally proved... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 16
	John Tyndall John Tyndall (1820–1893) was a British physicist who produced early, seminal advances in the physics of energy flows in the Earth’s atmosphere. In his investigation of the radiant heat and the acoustic properties of the atmosphere, he built the first ratiospectrophotometer that he used to measure the absorptive powers of gases such as water vapor, carbonic acid (carbon dioxide), ozone, and hydrocarbons. Using the ratiospectrophotmeter, he identified the large differences... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 17
	Tom M. L. Wigley Tom M. L. Wigley (1940-) is an Australian mathematical physicist and climatologist who made many important contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis. He made important contributions to a diverse collection of topics in climatology including data analysis; climate impacts on agriculture and water resources; paleoclimatology; and modeling of climate, sea level, and the carbon cycle. He was a lead scientist in most major scientific reviews... Read More» (Climate Change Biographies) 18