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A scientist who had sounded the alarm about climate change and popularized the term "global warming" is dead. Wallace Smith Broecker was 87 years old.
Long-time professor and researcher at Columbia University died Monday in a hospital in New York City, according to a spokesman for the university's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Kevin Krajick said Broecker was sick in recent months.
Broecker generalized the use of "global warming" in a 1975 article that correctly predicted that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would result in pronounced warming. He then became the first person to recognize what he called the oceanic treadmill, a global network of currents that affected everything from air temperature to rain diets.
"Wally was unique, brilliant and combative," said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University. "He did not let himself be fooled by the cooling of the 1970s. He clearly saw unprecedented warming and clearly expressed his point of view, even though few people were willing to listen to him."
In the oceanic conveyor belt, the cold, salty water of the North Atlantic flows in the manner of a diver who leads the ocean current from North America to Europe. The warm surface waters supported by this current help maintain the mild climate of Europe.
Otherwise, he said, Europe would be frozen, with the average winter temperature dropping at least 20 degrees Fahrenheit and London looking more like Spitsbergen, Norway, located 600 km north of the circle. Arctic polar.
Broecker said his studies suggested that the conveyor was the "Achilles heel of the climate system" and a fragile phenomenon that can change quickly for reasons not understood. It would only need a slight increase in temperature to prevent water from sinking in the North Atlantic, which would have the effect of putting the conveyor to a halt. Broecker said it was possible that the warming caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases is enough to affect ocean currents dramatically.
"Broecker alone has popularized the idea that this could lead to a dramatic" turning point "for climate change and, more generally, Broecker has helped to communicate to the public and policymakers the potential for abrupt climate change and" surprises "Unwelcome because of the changing climate," said Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State.
In 1984, Broecker told a House subcommittee that the build-up of greenhouse gases justified a "new bold national effort to understand the functioning of the areas of the atmosphere, the oceans, ice and the terrestrial biosphere ".
"We live in a climate system that can suddenly switch from one state to another," Broecker told the Associated Press in 1997. huge amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, "give us an experience that could have devastating effects."
"We are playing with an angry beast – a climate system that has turned out to be very sensitive," he said.
Broecker was awarded the National Science Medal in 1996 and was a member of the National Academy of Science. He also held the position of research coordinator for Biosphere 2, an experimental laboratory for the living environment.
Broecker was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew up in the suburbs of Oak Park.
He joined Columbia faculty in 1959, spending most of his time at the university lab in Palisades, NY. He was known in scientific circles as the "grandfather of climate science" and the "dean of climate scientists".
"His discoveries have been fundamental in interpreting the history of the Earth's climate," said Oppenheimer. "No scientist was so stimulating: he was a good instigator, willing to defend unpopular ideas, such as widespread particles to compensate for climate change. But it was always a two-way conversation, never boring, always educational. I will miss him. "
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