Wallace Smith Broecker, a professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, known for coining the term ‘Global Warming’ passed away at the age of 87. A spokesperson for the university’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said that Broecker had been suffering from health problems in the recent months. The climate scientist is best known for bringing the term Global Warming into common parlance with a paper he wrote in 1975. Back then, he sounded warning bells that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to increased warming and related environmental problems. Here are important facts about Wallace Smith Broecker. Climate Change Effect: Oceans are Warming Faster Than Scientists Thought, Says New Research.

    • Known to friends, peers and admirers as “Wally,” Broecker, born in 1931, is considered one among the greatest geoscientists.

    • His area of research has been the role of oceans in climate change.

    • He was a pioneer in radiocarbon and isotope dating – the methods used for creating a map of the history of Earth’s climate fluctuations. India And China Are Leading in Increasing Earth's Green Cover Through Various Agriculture Initiatives. 

  • Apart from naming Global Warming, Broecker also discovered Ocean Conveyor Belt and coined the term.

  •  It also happens to be the most important discovery in the history of oceanography and one of the most crucial ones related to climate.

  • Broecker has won many awards, which includes the Vetlesen Prize in 1987, National Medal of Science given to him by Bill Clinton in 1996 and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2002.

  • Among his highly-acclaimed books is Fixing Climax, co-authored with writer Robert Kunzing, where he recommends making carbon “scrubbers” that will cycle carbon out of the environment and send it back to earth’s crust.

  • In the book, he says burning fossil fuels isn’t bad as far as only climate change is concerned, but dumping the waste into the atmosphere is.

  • Unlike the others, Broecker was realistic in his approach towards using fossil fuels, given humanity’s dependence on them.

  • In a BBC talk show Hardtalk, he explained: “I think we have an option and the option is to let them industrialise but take care of the problem by capturing and storing the CO2.” The real challenge is to “put away” the waste.

Known as the "Grandfather of Climate Science" and the "Dean of Climate Scientists", Broecker’s contributions to climate science has been invaluable. His discoveries have changed the way we look at and understand the environment. His death has dealt a big blow to the field of climate science.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 20, 2019 11:33 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).