Prof. Cicerone Named to UCI’s Aldrich Chair : Education: Globalwarming expert is seen as someone who can enhance the university’s stature as a center of research into environmental dilemmas.

Atmospheric chemist Ralph J. Cicerone, an internationally known expert on global warming, was named Thursday to UC Irvine’s Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. endowed chair, one of the university’s most prestigious academic honors.

Cicerone was wooed away from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 1989 to launch UCI’s geosciences department, which will be the first of its kind at a major university to study the dynamics of air, earth and sea.

In April, the 47-year-old Cicerone was elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences, a lifetime appointment considered a pinnacle achievement for scientists. He is the second professor to hold the Aldrich Chair, named for UCI’s founding chancellor.

“It was a nice surprise,” said Cicerone, who learned of the appointment in a letter from Chancellor Jack W. Peltason last Friday. “It’s a major honor. I thought the world of Chancellor Aldrich, as everyone did.”

Aldrich, who died last spring, had a lifelong concern for the environment. This second appointment appears to mark a trend that the holder of the Aldrich chair be a distinguished researcher in global sciences.

Cicerone follows his colleague, UCI chemistry professor F. Sherwood Rowland, who in 1974 first revealed to the world that Earth’s protective ozone layer was being destroyed by chemicals in aerosol sprays, air conditioners and cleaning solvents. Rowland relinquished the Aldrich chair in 1989, when he was named the university’s second Bren Fellow, a $1-million endowment.

“It’s kind of a natural fit,” Peltason said of Cicerone’s appointment to the chair, which has an endowment of $340,000. “I think he’s a splendid academic citizen, and I’m very pleased that he chose to come here.”

The Aldrich Chair, founded in 1984 with a $100,000 donation from the Irvine Co., is one of 15 such endowments, which provide annual interest income to support the research of prominent scholars.

Cicerone is widely viewed on campus as someone who can solidify and enhance UCI’s stature as a center of research into the most pressing environmental dilemmas. It was Cicerone’s work with Richard Stolarski of the University of Michigan that laid the groundwork for Rowland’s ozone discovery with Mario Molina, now a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cicerone also showed that gases other than carbon dioxide were instrumental in the warming of the atmosphere, a phenomenon known as the “greenhouse effect.”

“I can’t think of anyone more deserving than Ralph Cicerone,” said Harold Moore, dean of UCI’s School of Physical Sciences, which nominated him for the Aldrich Chair. “He’s a scholar of the very first rank. . . . He is a man with not only the stellar documented academic credentials, but he also has . . . equally great talents in the administrative arena.”

Peltason said the geosciences department is a “natural next step” for a university with the talents of a Rowland and a Cicerone.

“I have no doubt that this is one of the things for which we (UCI) will become famous,” Peltason said.

Cicerone said the UCI program will differ considerably from the work done at the federally funded nonprofit National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., where he served as director of the atmospheric chemistry division.

“The primary emphasis there was on the atmosphere,” he said. “But the atmosphere is not the whole story. We have to pay attention to the ocean and the way the ocean and atmosphere and soils interact.

“We will be looking at a broader effort here, although the research will emphasize the physics, the chemistry and the biology of the atmosphere.

“And here, the students will be central. We will be doing not only our (research) work, but trying to make sure there are some awfully good people, better than us to work in this area in the future. . . . We think the future demands this.”

Cicerone said that he is poised to hire several faculty in coming months and that then the real work of building the department can begin.

The endowment is expected to generate about $20,000 to $25,000 annually. Cicerone said he has not decided how to use the funds.

“I will be allowed to start various research projects or employ a student to work on a project without any questions or lengthy (grant applications),” he said. “That kind of freedom is very nice to have.”

One project Cicerone is most eager to begin is a study of unusual chemicals being produced in seawater. He hopes to collaborate with two researchers from the Caltech and a Cal State Long Beach professor. He said the Aldrich Chair income would barely begin to cover the cost of the project but could provide a start.