The State - News from Feb. 8, 1989

UC Irvine chemistry professor F. Sherwood Rowland has been awarded the internationally prestigious Japan Prize by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan for his documentation of the destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer. The 50-million-yen award in environmental sciences and technology goes to Rowland for his theoretical analysis of the depletion of the Earth’s protective ozone layer and his prediction of the rate of depletion. At current exchange rates, the prize is worth about $387,600. Rowland, 62, discovered in 1974 that substances used in common aerosol sprays, air conditioning systems and cleaning solvents were responsible for damaging the ozone layer, which he predicted would cause increased skin cancer rates and catastrophic climactic change. His work to publicize the findings resulted in a 1978 Congressional ban on the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol sprays. The award was announced at a news conference in Tokyo.