UCSD’s Revelle Wins Prestigious Balzan Prize
A prestigious but little-known international prize has been awarded to UC San Diego professor Roger Revelle for his half-century of pioneering work on the buildup of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere.
Revelle, known worldwide among academicians for his oceanography research, will receive the 1986 Balzan Prize for oceanography and climatology from the International Balzan Foundation of Milan, Italy. He is one of four recipients of 1986 prizes.
The ceremony for the award, which includes a medal and a $165,000 cash prize, is held annually by Italy’s Academia Lincel in Rome, the world’s oldest scientific society. Named after the late Italian heiress Lina Balzan, the prize, which was established in 1961, is considered the “Nobel Prize” for fields not represented in the Nobel awards.
Revelle, 77, is a UCSD professor of science and public policy and director emeritus of the UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was instrumental in founding the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research during World War II, a precursor to postwar civilian oceanographic studies.
Revelle was a founder of UCSD in 1964 and Revelle College there is named for him.
He also pioneered population control research by founding the Harvard University Center for Population Studies in 1964, which he directed until 1975.
In awarding Revelle the Balzan Prize, the Italian foundation recognized his seminal work in noting atmospheric changes due to the release of carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels, commonly known as the “greenhouse effect.”
Revelle and Scripps marine chemist Hans Suess discovered during the 1950s that only half of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel burning was absorbed by the world’s oceans, contrary to the 98% absorption that scientists had previously thought to exist. The research led to the first general awareness that industrialization would have a considerable geophysical effect on the earth’s climate.
Under Revelle’s prodding, a program was instituted to collect air samples from the top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii and at the South Pole. The program, still going today, represents the principal source of data used to determine the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Revelle has chaired several presidential and National Academy of Sciences committees that have detailed possible effects of carbon dioxide, including potential sea-level rises and increases in global temperatures.
The three other winners of the Balzan Prize this year include: the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for humanity, peace, and brotherhood; Otto Neugebauer, a former Brown University professor, for research on ancient astronomy, and French jurist Jean Rivero, for efforts to protect human rights.
Previous award winners have included Pope John XXIII, Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
