Wallace Smith Broecker, renowned Climate scientist passes away

Wallace Smith Broecker (87), a scientist who raised early alarms about climate change and popularized the term “global warming”, has passed away in New York, United States. He brought “global warming” into common use with a 1975 paper that correctly predicted rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to pronounced warming. He was also an advocate for political action to deal with the problem. Broecker was also a pioneer in radiocarbon and isotope dating and became the first person to recognise what he called the ocean conveyor belt, a global network of currents affecting everything from air temperature to rain patterns. He joined Columbia’s faculty in 1959 and was known in science circles as the “Grandfather of Climate Science”.