Lamont Climate Researcher Awarded Global Honor
What do Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Wally Broecker, one of Lamont Doherty’s star geochemists, have in common? They are both recipients of the prestigious Balzan Prize, which is presented by the Milan-based Balzan Foundation to honor outstanding science, culture and humanitarian initiatives that advance world peace. Dr. Broecker, one of four recent honorees, will receive the award on November 21st in Rome, along with $885,000, half of which must be devoted to future work.
The Balzan Prize honors Broecker 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.”
Wally is taking this latest award in stride. A man who dances to his own music, he prefers to attack any number of ideas floating around his head with pencil and paper, leaving others to deal with computer analyses. Constantly questioning, he has said, “Never consider any thought you had as sacred.” A New York Times article describes the free thinker as “part crusty curmudgeon and blunt spoken iconoclast, part imp and practical joker – but all intellect” and has proclaimed him a geoengineering pioneer.
Broecker’s office overlooks the front entrance to the spanking new Comer building at Lamont, where he has a bird’s eye view of all who come and go from it. He was instrumental in getting the geochemistry building built, by personally convincing the late Gary C. Comer, founder of the Land’s End company, to donate $18 million toward its construction. A suite of labs has been named for Broecker.
Wally grew up in Chicago and arrived at Columbia University after having been recruited from Wheaton College, a fundamentalist school, in 1952. He joined Lamont Geological Observatory in the early days under Maurice Ewing and began his career there as director of the radiocarbon dating laboratory.
Broecker, who has written seven books and over 400 articles, was one of the first to warn in the 1970s that the earth would warm because of buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases released by burning fossil fuels. In a 1975 paper on climate change, Broecker coined the term “global warming.” He is best known for discovering how ocean currents trigger abrupt climate changes through a conveyor belt effect that circulates throughout the global network of oceans. (See illustration.) In a 1987 paper in the journal, Nature, he proposed that heat is transported around the world by massive deep ocean currents that interact with the atmosphere. This great ocean conveyor theory is regarded as a breakthrough in climatology. Models show that the earth’s warming just a few degrees could disrupt this conveyor, causing disastrous effects worldwide.
Wally’s most recent book, Fixing Climate, which he coauthored with science journalist Robert Kunzig, focuses on scientist Klaus Lackner’s concept of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it underground.
In addition to his groundbreaking work, Wally has trained a large number of students throughout his career, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in education and government.
Among his many awards, Wally has received the Vetlesen Prize from Columbia University, the Crafoord Prize in Geoscience from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the National Medal of Science presented by president Bill Clinton and the Urey Medal of the European Association for Geochemistry.
He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and European Geophysical Union.