Wallace Smith Broecker ("Wally") (born 1931) is the Newberry Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
and a scientist at Columbia's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory- History :The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is a research unit of Columbia University located on a 157-acre campus in Palisades, N.Y., 18 miles north of Manhattan on the Hudson River. It was established in 1949 as the Lamont Geological Observatory on the weekend estate of Thomas W. and...
.
Biography
Broecker's areas of research include
PleistoceneThe Pleistocene is the epoch from 2.588 million to 12 000 years BP covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
geochronologyGeochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments, within a certain degree of uncertainty inherent within the method used. A variety of dating methods are used by geologists to achieve this...
,
radiocarbon datingRadiocarbon dating, or carbon dating, is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present"...
and
chemical oceanographyChemical oceanography is the study of ocean chemistry: the behavior of the chemical elements within the Earth's oceans. The ocean is unique in that it contains - in greater or lesser quantities - nearly every element in the periodic table....
, including oceanic mixing based on
stableStable isotopes are chemical isotopes that are not radioactive . By this definition, there are 256 known stable isotopes of the 80 elements which have one or more stable isotopes. A list of these is given at the end of this article...
and radioisotope distribution. This includes research on the
biogeochemical cycleIn ecology and Earth science, a biogeochemical cycle or nutrient cycle is a pathway by which a chemical element or molecule moves through both biotic and abiotic compartments of Earth...
s of the element
carbonCarbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
and on the record of
climate changeClimate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. It can be a change in the average weather or a change in the distribution of weather events around an average...
contained in polar ice and ocean sediments.
He attended Wheaton College and interacted with
J. Laurence KulpJohn Laurence Kulp was a 20th century geochemist. He led major studies on the effects of nuclear fallout and acid rain. He was a prominent advocate in American Scientific Affiliation circles in favor of an Old Earth and against the pseudoscience of flood geology...
and
Paul GastPaul Werner Gast was an American geochemist and geologist.He was born in Chicago, and attended Wheaton College, Illinois from whence he graduated in 1952. He earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1957...
. Broecker then transferred to
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
. At Columbia, he worked at the
Lamont Geological Observatory- History :The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is a research unit of Columbia University located on a 157-acre campus in Palisades, N.Y., 18 miles north of Manhattan on the Hudson River. It was established in 1949 as the Lamont Geological Observatory on the weekend estate of Thomas W. and...
with
W. Maurice EwingWilliam Maurice "Doc" Ewing was an American geophysicist and oceanographer.Ewing has been described as a pioneering geophysicist who worked on the research of seismic reflection and refraction in ocean basins, ocean bottom photography, submarine sound transmission , deep sea coring of the ocean...
and
Walter BucherDr. Walter Hermann Bucher was a German-American geologist and paleontologist.He was born in Akron, Ohio of Swiss-German parents. The family then returned to Germany where he was raised. In 1911 he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Heidelberg with a focus on geology and paleontology. The...
.
Broecker has authored over 450 journal articles and 10 books. He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the role played by the ocean in triggering the abrupt climate changes which punctuated glacial time- in particular, the development and popularization of the idea of a global
"conveyor belt"The term thermohaline circulation refers to the part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes....
linking the circulation of the global ocean. However, his contributions stretch far beyond the "conveyor"; his work is the foundation of carbon cycle science, and his applications of radiocarbon to paleoceanography are landmarks in the field. His work with chemical tracers in the ocean is integral to modern chemical oceanography; indeed, his textbook "Tracers in the Sea", authored with Tsung-Hung Peng, is still cited in the contemporary literature 25 years after its publication.
Dr. Broecker writes about his research, on mode changes in the thermohaline circulation: "We have clear evidence that different parts of the earth's climate system are linked in very subtle yet dramatic ways. The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth's climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change."
Broecker is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
and the
National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine."The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code....
, Foreign Member of the Royal Society, and a Fellow of the
American Geophysical UnionThe American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
and
European Geophysical UnionThe European Geosciences Union is an interdisciplinary learned non-profit association open to individuals who are professionally engaged in or associated with geosciences, planetary and space sciences, and related studies....
. He has received the
Crafoord PrizeThe Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord...
in Geoscience, the
National Medal of ScienceThe National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
, Maurice W. Ewing Medal of the
American Geophysical UnionThe American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
, the
Alexander Agassiz MedalThe Alexander Agassiz Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for an original contribution in the science of oceanography. It was established by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend Alexander Agassiz.-Recipients:*1913: Johan Hjort...
of the
National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine."The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code....
, the
Urey MedalThe Urey Medal is given annually by the European Association for Geochemistry for outstanding contributions advancing Geochemistry over a career. The award is named for Harold Urey....
of the European Association for Geochemistry, the V.M. Goldschmidt Award from the
Geochemical SocietyThe Geochemical Society is a nonprofit and international scientific society for the purpose of encouraging the application of chemistry to solve problems involving geology and cosmology...
, the
Vetlesen PrizeThe Vetlesen Prize is awarded from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.-Background:The prize is considered by many the earth sciences’ equivalent of a Nobel award. The prize is awarded for scientific achievement resulting in a clearer...
from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, the
Wollaston MedalThe Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
of the
Geological Society of LondonThe Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth". It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with over 9000 Fellows entitled to the postnominal FGS - over...
, the Roger Revelle Medal of the
American Geophysical UnionThe American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
, the
Tyler Prize for Environmental AchievementThe Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement is an award for environmental science, energy, and medicine. Tyler Laureates receive a $200,000 annual prize and a gold medallion. The prize is administered by the University of Southern California and was established by the late John and Alice Tyler in...
from the
University of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA...
, the Blue Planet Prize from The Asahi Glass Foundation, and the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science from The
Franklin InstituteThe Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest and premier centers of science education and development in the United States. The Institute itself comprises three centers — The Science Center, The Franklin Center, and The Center for Innovation in Science...
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1975, Dr. Broecker inadvertently coined the phrase
global warmingGlobal warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century...
when he published a paper titled: “Climate Change: Are we on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” He has recently co-written an account of climate science with the science journalist, Robert Kunzig. This includes a discussion of the work of Broecker's Columbia colleague Klaus Lackner in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere - which Broecker believes must play a vital role in reducing emissions and countering global warming. Broecker has been described in the New York Times as a geoengineering pioneer.
In September 2008 Broecker was the recipient of the
Balzan PrizeThe International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man....
for outstanding achievement in science. His citation was made by Enric Banda (Research Professor of Geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Barcelona): “For his extraordinary contributions to the understanding of climate change through his discoveries concerning the role of the oceans and their interactions with the atmosphere, as well as the role of glacial changes and the records contained in ice cores and ocean sediments. His contributions have been significant in understanding both gradual and abrupt climate change”.
In January 2009, Broecker was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Climate Change category for his seminal research into the oceans’ biological and chemical processes that pioneered the development of Earth System Science as the basis for understanding global climate change, both past and present. The award certificate also highlights “his holistic approach”, which has led him to identify “the mechanisms of abrupt climate change”.
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