Explorers Club to Honor NSF-Funded Researchers and Glaciologist for
Climate-Science Breakthroughs
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http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pr07133
Two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientists, a U.S.
Antarctic Program glaciologist and a recipient of the national Medal of
Science, will receive the Lowell Thomas Award from the New York-based
Explorers Club on 18 October 2007, in recognition of their work at the
frontiers of climate research.
The awards are presented by the president of the Explorers Club to
groups of outstanding explorers who have distinguished themselves in a
particular field. Five of this year's eight awardees are federal
government scientists or receive their primary funding from the federal
government. This year's awards theme is "Exploring Climate Change."
The list of NSF-affiliated recipients includes:
W. Berry Lyons, an NSF grantee, director of the Byrd Polar Research
Center at Ohio State University and lead principal investigator for the
McMurdo Dry valleys Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) project will be
honored for his studies of the geochemistry of global climate change.
Paul Mayewski, also an NSF grantee, and the director of the Climate
Change Institute at the University of Maine, will be honored for work
that the Club says has "revolutionized the field of climate change
through the discovery of abrupt climate change and human impacts on the
chemistry of the atmosphere." Mayewski also is the founder and lead
investigator of the International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition
(ITASE), which comprises scientific teams from 21 countries.
Julie Palais directs the Antarctic Glaciology Program in NSF's Office of
Polar Programs. She is being honored for research into the use of
volcanic ash in ice cores to study the paleoclimate record of the
Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in
Boulder, Colorado, is known for her climate and ozone work, including
research that led to determining the chemical cause of the Antarctic
"Ozone hole." Much of that basic research was conducted at McMurdo
Station, NSF's logistical hub in Antarctica. Her research also helped
lay the scientific foundation that led to an amendment to the Montreal
Protocol that banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons, which were creating
chemical reactions destructive to stratospheric ozone. Solomon was
awarded the Medal of Science for her work. NSF administers the Medal of
Science program.
Karl A. Erb, who heads the U.S. Antarctic Program, which manages all
U.S. research on the southernmost continent, said it was particularly
appropriate that the awards should be made during the International
Polar Year (IPY), a two-year, global field campaign of research in the
Arctic and Antarctic. NSF is the lead federal agency for U.S. IPY
science.
"It is particularly gratifying that these awards be made to these
pioneering researchers during IPY," Erb added. "They have led the way to
new and very promising intellectual horizons and from the vantage points
they reached first we can hope that they and others will see the way to
even more exciting research that will, as theirs has done, benefit all
humanity."
The Lowell Thomas Award is named for 53-year club member Lowell Thomas
(1892-1981), the American writer, explorer, and broadcaster who famously
accompanied T.E. Lawrence during the Arab revolts and made "Lawrence of
Arabia" famous. Previous recipients have included Isaac Asimov, Sylvia
Earle, Carl Sagan, Buzz Aldrin, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Sir Edmund Hillary,
and Wade Davis.
This year's awards also went to:
Oceanographer Richard Feely of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory in Seattle, an expert on the subject of ocean acidification.
He was one of the lead authors of a series of papers highlighting the
role of the ocean in absorbing excess carbon dioxide (CO2) and the
potential consequences of a CO2-rich ocean.
Will C. Steger, a noted polar explorer, writer, and lecturer.
Sarah Robertson and Adam Ravetch, who directed the National Geographic
Films' movie "An Arctic Tale."
NSF Press Release 07-133
Media Contact:
Peter West, NSF
Phone: 703-292-7761
E-mail: pwest [at] nsf.gov