Roger Revelle
Encyclopedia
Roger Randall Dougan Revelle (March 7, 1909 — July 15, 1991) was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego
and was one of the first scientists to study global warming
and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates
. UC San Diego's first college is named Revelle College in his honor.
to William Roger Revelle and Ella Dougan, and grew up in southern California, graduating from Pomona College
in 1929 with early studies in geology
and then earning a Ph.D. in oceanography
from the University of California, Berkeley
in 1936. While at Cal, he studied under Dr. George D. Louderback and was initiated into Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity which started as a mining engineering fraternity and maintained a strong affinity for geology and geological engineering students. Much of his early work in oceanography took place at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
(SIO) in San Diego
. He was also Oceanographer for the Navy during WWII. He became director of SIO from 1950 to 1964. He stood against the UC faculty being required to take an anti-communist oath during the Joseph McCarthy
period. He served as Science Advisor to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall
during the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s, and was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(1974).
helped the U.S. government to plan nuclear weapons tests, in the hope that oceanographers might make use of the data. Revelle was one of the committee chairmen in the influential National Academy of Sciences
studies of the biological effects of atomic radiation (BEAR), the results of which were published in 1956. In 1952, along with Dr. Seibert Q. Duntley
, he successfully moved the MIT Visibility Lab to SIO with financial support of the U.S. Navy. Along with oceanographers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
, Revelle planned the American contributions to the oceanographic program of the International Geophysical Year
(IGY). He became the first president of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, an international group of scientists devoted to advising on international projects, and he was a frequent advisor to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
, created in 1960.
(IGY) in 1958 and was founding chairman of the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean (CCCO) under the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR) and the International Oceanic Commission (IOC). During planning for the IGY, under Revelle's directorship, SIO participated in and later became the principal center for the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Program. In July 1956, Charles David Keeling
joined the SIO staff to head the program, and began measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory
on Mauna Loa
, Hawaii, and in Antarctica.
In 1957, Revelle co-authored a paper with Hans Suess
that suggested that the Earth's oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide
generated by humanity at a much slower rate than previously predicted by geoscientists, thereby suggesting that human gas emissions might create a "greenhouse effect
" that would cause global warming
over time. Although other articles in the same journal discussed carbon dioxide levels, the Suess-Revelle paper was "the only one of the three to stress the growing quantity of contributed by our burning of fossil fuel
, and to call attention to the fact that it might cause global warming over time."
Revelle and Suess described the "buffer factor", now known as the "Revelle factor
", which is a resistance to atmospheric carbon dioxide
being absorbed by the ocean surface layer posed by bicarbonate chemistry. Essentially, in order to enter the ocean, carbon dioxide gas has to partition into one of the components of carbonic acid: carbonate ion, bicarbonate ion, or protonated carbonic acid, and the product of these many chemical dissociation constants factors into a kind of back-pressure that limits how fast the carbon dioxide can enter the surface ocean. Geology, geochemistry
, atmospheric chemistry
, ocean chemistry
... this amounted to one of the earliest examples of "integrated assessment", which 50 years later became an entire branch of global warming science.
campus in San Diego. He had to contend with the UC University Board of Regents who would have preferred merely to expand the University of California, Los Angeles
campus rather than create an entirely new campus in San Diego. He also faced local San Diego politicians and businessmen who tried to undermine establishing the new campus near the original Scripps Institute in La Jolla by suggesting it be placed in less optimal sites in San Diego proper, such as near San Diego State University
or in Balboa Park
. The watershed decision was made in 1959, with the first graduate students enrolled in 1960, and the first undergraduates in 1964.
Revelle's struggle to acquire land for the new campus put him in competition with Jonas Salk
, and Revelle lost some of what he called the "best piece of land we had" on UCSD's eventual Torrey Pines site to the fledgling Salk Institute. In later years Revelle continued to show some animosity toward Salk, once saying, "He is a folk hero, even though he is... not very bright."
When at Scripps and while building UCSD, Revelle also had to deal with a La Jolla community that refused to rent or sell property to Jews. In addition to battling the anti-semitic restrictive covenant
of La Jolla real estate, Revelle helped found a new housing subdivision for Scripps professors, partially because some of them would not have been allowed to live in La Jolla.
Revelle left Scripps in 1963 and founded the Center for Population Studies at Harvard University
. In over ten years as director there, he focussed on the application of science and technology to the problem of world hunger. In 1976 he returned to UC San Diego as Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs (STPA) in the school's political science
department.
for the publication Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues
, along with another co-author, electrical engineer Chauncey Starr
, titled "What to do about greenhouse warming: Look before you leap," which was published in the summer of 1992. The Cosmos article included the statement that:
The article concluded:
These particular statements and the bulk of the article, including the title, had been written and published a year earlier by S. Fred Singer, as sole author. Singer's article stated that "there is every expectation that scientific understanding will be substantially improved within the next decade," and advocated against drastic and "hastily-conceived" action at the time without further scientific evidence. It does not, however, deny climate change or global warming.
Justin Lancaster, Revelle's graduate student and teaching assistant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1981 until Revelle's death, alleges that Revelle was "hoodwinked" by Singer into adding his name to the article and that Revelle was "intensely embarrassed that his name was associated" with it. In 1992, Lancaster charged that Singer's actions were "unethical" and specifically designed to undercut Al Gore's global warming policy stance; however, to end a lawsuit brought by Singer against Lancaster with support of the Center for Public Interest in Washington, D.C., Lancaster gave Singer a statement of apology and confirmed that Revelle had allowed his name to be used. In 2006, prompted by Robert Balling and others continuing to state that Revelle actually wrote the article, Lancaster formally withdrew his retraction and reiterated his charges.
When Gore was running for the vice-presidential nomination in 1992, the New Republic picked up on the contrast between the references to Revelle in Gore's book, Earth In The Balance, and the views in the Cosmos article that could now be attributed to Revelle. This was followed up by Newsweek and elsewhere in the media. Patrick Michaels boasted that the Cosmos article had been read into the Congressional Record. The issue was even raised by Admiral Stockdale in the televised Vice-Presidential debate. Gore's response was to protest that Revelle's views in the article had been 'taken completely out of context'.
Lancaster's involvement was as a result of his relationship with his graduate supervisor, Charles David Keeling
, and Lancaster's position on an editorial board of a CRC publication to which Singer resubmitted the Cosmos article as a book chapter after Revelle's death. Because Lancaster was aware Revelle's views were misrepresented by the Cosmos article and because the CRC publication was directed toward only original, scholarly research, Lancaster called Singer to ask that the article not be republished, or that at least Revelle's name be removed from the article. Singer explained that this was not possible, as the article had already been previously published. Lancaster persisted, claiming that Revelle had not really been a co-author of the article at all and that his name had been included despite 'his objections' to key statements in the article, most importantly the statement predicting that the warming in the next century would be less than year-to-year variations. Based on statements from Revelle's secretary who was in the room during Revelle's single meeting with Singer to review the final paper, Lancaster suggested that Singer must have pressured a sick old man whose mental capacities tired quickly during such activities. After Lancaster published his charges in a letter to the supervising editors at CRC publishing, Singer sued for libel.
When the two sides exchanged documents during legal discovery, it emerged that Lancaster had been rung by Gore after the Newsweek article appeared, and that Gore had particularly pressed him about Revelle's mental state towards the end of his life. Lancaster told Gore that Revelle had in fact been 'mentally sharp to the end', but that he tired quickly in class and in meetings. He also stated that Revelle had shown him the Cosmos article before it was published, that he had scanned it too quickly to detect the misstatements, Lancaster saying to Revelle there did not seem to be anything in it that 'was not true', and that 'it was honest to admit uncertainties about greenhouse warming'.
This eventually led to Lancaster settling his case with Singer by issuing a retraction and apology, although Lancaster firmly refused to admit that anything he said was false. Twelve years later, in 2006, Lancaster recanted his retraction on a website, 'The Cosmos Myth', in which he specifically included references to the evidence that had come to light during the discovery process of the legal action, most importantly the sworn testimony of Singer regarding actual authorship of the Cosmos article , as well as the sworn affidavit of Revelle's secretary and Singer's earlier publication of the article under his sole authorship.
Revelle's daughter wrote:
problem), and Marine Policy.
In 1986 he won the Balzan Prize
for Oceanography/Climatology.
A 1990 heart attack forced him to move his course to the Scripps Institution from the Revelle College provost's office, where he continued to teach the Marine Policy program until his death the following year. In 1991, he was awarded the National Medal of Science
by President George H.W. Bush (one of about 500 recipients in the 20th Century). He remarked to a reporter: "I got it for being the grandfather of the greenhouse effect."
Revelle died in San Diego on July 15, 1991 of complications of cardiac arrest. He was survived by his wife, Ellen Clark Revelle (1910-2009) , three daughters, and one son, William
, as well as numerous grandchildren. In his honor, a new research vessel at the Scripps Institution was christened R/V Roger Revelle
.
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
and was one of the first scientists to study global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates
Tectonic Plates
Tectonic Plates is a 1992 independent Canadian film directed by Peter Mettler. Mettler also wrote the screenplay based on the play by Robert Lepage. The film stars Marie Gignac, Céline Bonnier and Robert Lepage.-Plot summary:...
. UC San Diego's first college is named Revelle College in his honor.
Career
Roger Revelle was born in SeattleSeattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
to William Roger Revelle and Ella Dougan, and grew up in southern California, graduating from Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
in 1929 with early studies in geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
and then earning a Ph.D. in oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 1936. While at Cal, he studied under Dr. George D. Louderback and was initiated into Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity which started as a mining engineering fraternity and maintained a strong affinity for geology and geological engineering students. Much of his early work in oceanography took place at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
(SIO) in San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. He was also Oceanographer for the Navy during WWII. He became director of SIO from 1950 to 1964. He stood against the UC faculty being required to take an anti-communist oath during the Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
period. He served as Science Advisor to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall
Stewart Udall
Stewart Lee Udall was an American politician. After serving three terms as a congressman from Arizona, he served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B...
during the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s, and was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
(1974).
Growth of Oceanography
Revelle was deeply involved in the growth of oceanography in the United States and internationally after World War II. Working for the Navy in the late 1940s, he helped to determine which projects gained funding, and he promoted the idea that the Navy ought to support "basic research" instead of only trying to build new technology. At Scripps he launched several major long-range expeditions in the 1950s, including the MIDPAC, TRANSPAC (with Canada and Japan), EQUAPAC, and NORPAC, each traversing a different part of the Pacific Ocean. He and other scientists at Scripps Institution of OceanographyScripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
helped the U.S. government to plan nuclear weapons tests, in the hope that oceanographers might make use of the data. Revelle was one of the committee chairmen in the influential National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
studies of the biological effects of atomic radiation (BEAR), the results of which were published in 1956. In 1952, along with Dr. Seibert Q. Duntley
Seibert Q. Duntley
Seibert Quimby Duntley was born in Bushnell, Illinois on October 2, 1911. He received an SB in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933. Duntley received an MS degree from California Institute of Technology in 1935 and an Sc.D. in physics from MIT in 1939...
, he successfully moved the MIT Visibility Lab to SIO with financial support of the U.S. Navy. Along with oceanographers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research...
, Revelle planned the American contributions to the oceanographic program of the International Geophysical Year
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
(IGY). He became the first president of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, an international group of scientists devoted to advising on international projects, and he was a frequent advisor to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission was established by resolution 2.31 adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO. It first met in Paris at Unesco Headquarters from 19 to 27 October 1961. Initially, 40 States became members of the Commission.The IOC is composed of its Member States ,...
, created in 1960.
Global warming
Revelle was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical YearInternational Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
(IGY) in 1958 and was founding chairman of the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean (CCCO) under the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR) and the International Oceanic Commission (IOC). During planning for the IGY, under Revelle's directorship, SIO participated in and later became the principal center for the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Program. In July 1956, Charles David Keeling
Charles David Keeling
Charles David Keeling was an American scientist whose recording of carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory first alerted the world to the possibility of anthropogenic contribution to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming...
joined the SIO staff to head the program, and began measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory
Mauna Loa Observatory
The Mauna Loa Observatory is an atmospheric baseline station on Mauna Loa volcano, on the big island of Hawaii.-The observatory:Since 1956 Mauna Loa Observatory has been monitoring and collecting data relating to atmospheric change, and is known especially for the continuous monitoring of...
on Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the largest on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. It is an active shield volcano, with a volume estimated at approximately , although its peak is about lower than that...
, Hawaii, and in Antarctica.
In 1957, Revelle co-authored a paper with Hans Suess
Hans Suess
Hans Eduard Suess was an Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist. He was a grandson of the Austrian geologist Eduard SuessSuess earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1935...
that suggested that the Earth's oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
generated by humanity at a much slower rate than previously predicted by geoscientists, thereby suggesting that human gas emissions might create a "greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
" that would cause global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
over time. Although other articles in the same journal discussed carbon dioxide levels, the Suess-Revelle paper was "the only one of the three to stress the growing quantity of contributed by our burning of fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
, and to call attention to the fact that it might cause global warming over time."
Revelle and Suess described the "buffer factor", now known as the "Revelle factor
Revelle factor
The Revelle factor is a measure of the resistance to atmospheric carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean surface layer posed by bicarbonate chemistry...
", which is a resistance to atmospheric carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere
The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is approximately 392 ppm by volume and rose by 2.0 ppm/yr during 2000–2009. 40 years earlier, the rise was only 0.9 ppm/yr, showing not only increasing concentrations, but also a rapid acceleration of concentrations...
being absorbed by the ocean surface layer posed by bicarbonate chemistry. Essentially, in order to enter the ocean, carbon dioxide gas has to partition into one of the components of carbonic acid: carbonate ion, bicarbonate ion, or protonated carbonic acid, and the product of these many chemical dissociation constants factors into a kind of back-pressure that limits how fast the carbon dioxide can enter the surface ocean. Geology, geochemistry
Geochemistry
The field of geochemistry involves study of the chemical composition of the Earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks, water, and soils, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earth's chemical components in time and space, and...
, atmospheric chemistry
Atmospheric chemistry
Atmospheric chemistry is a branch of atmospheric science in which the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets is studied. It is a multidisciplinary field of research and draws on environmental chemistry, physics, meteorology, computer modeling, oceanography, geology and...
, ocean chemistry
Chemical oceanography
Chemical oceanography is the study of ocean chemistry: the behavior of the chemical elements within the Earth's oceans. The ocean is unique in that it contains - in greater or lesser quantities - nearly every element in the periodic table....
... this amounted to one of the earliest examples of "integrated assessment", which 50 years later became an entire branch of global warming science.
UC San Diego
During the late 1950s, Revelle fought for the establishment of a University of CaliforniaUniversity of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
campus in San Diego. He had to contend with the UC University Board of Regents who would have preferred merely to expand the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
campus rather than create an entirely new campus in San Diego. He also faced local San Diego politicians and businessmen who tried to undermine establishing the new campus near the original Scripps Institute in La Jolla by suggesting it be placed in less optimal sites in San Diego proper, such as near San Diego State University
San Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
or in Balboa Park
Balboa Park (San Diego)
Balboa Park is a urban cultural park in San Diego, California. The park is named after the Spanish maritime explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa...
. The watershed decision was made in 1959, with the first graduate students enrolled in 1960, and the first undergraduates in 1964.
Revelle's struggle to acquire land for the new campus put him in competition with Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk
Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Ashkenazi Jewish Russian immigrant families...
, and Revelle lost some of what he called the "best piece of land we had" on UCSD's eventual Torrey Pines site to the fledgling Salk Institute. In later years Revelle continued to show some animosity toward Salk, once saying, "He is a folk hero, even though he is... not very bright."
When at Scripps and while building UCSD, Revelle also had to deal with a La Jolla community that refused to rent or sell property to Jews. In addition to battling the anti-semitic restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
of La Jolla real estate, Revelle helped found a new housing subdivision for Scripps professors, partially because some of them would not have been allowed to live in La Jolla.
Revelle left Scripps in 1963 and founded the Center for Population Studies at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. In over ten years as director there, he focussed on the application of science and technology to the problem of world hunger. In 1976 he returned to UC San Diego as Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs (STPA) in the school's political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
department.
Alleged doubts about climate change
In 1991, Revelle's name appeared as co-author on an article written by physicist S. Fred SingerFred Singer
Siegfried Fred Singer is an Austrian-born American physicist and emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia...
for the publication Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues
Cosmos Club
The Cosmos Club is a private social club in Washington, D.C., founded by John Wesley Powell in 1878. In addition to Powell, original members included Clarence Edward Dutton, Henry Smith Pritchett, William Harkness, and John Shaw Billings. Among its stated goals is "The advancement of its members in...
, along with another co-author, electrical engineer Chauncey Starr
Chauncey Starr
Chauncey Starr was an American electrical engineer who was an expert in nuclear energy.Born in Newark, New Jersey, Starr received an electrical engineering degree in 1932 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1935 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.Starr was Vice President of Rockwell International and...
, titled "What to do about greenhouse warming: Look before you leap," which was published in the summer of 1992. The Cosmos article included the statement that:
Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral--steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective. Stringent economic controls now would be economically devastating particularly for developing countries...
The article concluded:
The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time. There is little risk in delaying policy responses.
These particular statements and the bulk of the article, including the title, had been written and published a year earlier by S. Fred Singer, as sole author. Singer's article stated that "there is every expectation that scientific understanding will be substantially improved within the next decade," and advocated against drastic and "hastily-conceived" action at the time without further scientific evidence. It does not, however, deny climate change or global warming.
Justin Lancaster, Revelle's graduate student and teaching assistant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1981 until Revelle's death, alleges that Revelle was "hoodwinked" by Singer into adding his name to the article and that Revelle was "intensely embarrassed that his name was associated" with it. In 1992, Lancaster charged that Singer's actions were "unethical" and specifically designed to undercut Al Gore's global warming policy stance; however, to end a lawsuit brought by Singer against Lancaster with support of the Center for Public Interest in Washington, D.C., Lancaster gave Singer a statement of apology and confirmed that Revelle had allowed his name to be used. In 2006, prompted by Robert Balling and others continuing to state that Revelle actually wrote the article, Lancaster formally withdrew his retraction and reiterated his charges.
When Gore was running for the vice-presidential nomination in 1992, the New Republic picked up on the contrast between the references to Revelle in Gore's book, Earth In The Balance, and the views in the Cosmos article that could now be attributed to Revelle. This was followed up by Newsweek and elsewhere in the media. Patrick Michaels boasted that the Cosmos article had been read into the Congressional Record. The issue was even raised by Admiral Stockdale in the televised Vice-Presidential debate. Gore's response was to protest that Revelle's views in the article had been 'taken completely out of context'.
Lancaster's involvement was as a result of his relationship with his graduate supervisor, Charles David Keeling
Charles David Keeling
Charles David Keeling was an American scientist whose recording of carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory first alerted the world to the possibility of anthropogenic contribution to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming...
, and Lancaster's position on an editorial board of a CRC publication to which Singer resubmitted the Cosmos article as a book chapter after Revelle's death. Because Lancaster was aware Revelle's views were misrepresented by the Cosmos article and because the CRC publication was directed toward only original, scholarly research, Lancaster called Singer to ask that the article not be republished, or that at least Revelle's name be removed from the article. Singer explained that this was not possible, as the article had already been previously published. Lancaster persisted, claiming that Revelle had not really been a co-author of the article at all and that his name had been included despite 'his objections' to key statements in the article, most importantly the statement predicting that the warming in the next century would be less than year-to-year variations. Based on statements from Revelle's secretary who was in the room during Revelle's single meeting with Singer to review the final paper, Lancaster suggested that Singer must have pressured a sick old man whose mental capacities tired quickly during such activities. After Lancaster published his charges in a letter to the supervising editors at CRC publishing, Singer sued for libel.
When the two sides exchanged documents during legal discovery, it emerged that Lancaster had been rung by Gore after the Newsweek article appeared, and that Gore had particularly pressed him about Revelle's mental state towards the end of his life. Lancaster told Gore that Revelle had in fact been 'mentally sharp to the end', but that he tired quickly in class and in meetings. He also stated that Revelle had shown him the Cosmos article before it was published, that he had scanned it too quickly to detect the misstatements, Lancaster saying to Revelle there did not seem to be anything in it that 'was not true', and that 'it was honest to admit uncertainties about greenhouse warming'.
This eventually led to Lancaster settling his case with Singer by issuing a retraction and apology, although Lancaster firmly refused to admit that anything he said was false. Twelve years later, in 2006, Lancaster recanted his retraction on a website, 'The Cosmos Myth', in which he specifically included references to the evidence that had come to light during the discovery process of the legal action, most importantly the sworn testimony of Singer regarding actual authorship of the Cosmos article , as well as the sworn affidavit of Revelle's secretary and Singer's earlier publication of the article under his sole authorship.
Revelle's daughter wrote:
Contrary to George Will's "Al Gore's Green Guilt" Roger Revelle - our father and the "father" of the greenhouse effect - remained deeply concerned about global warming until his death in July 1991. That same year he wrote: "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time." WillGeorge WillGeorge Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...
and other critics of Sen. Al Gore have seized these words to suggest that Revelle, who was also Gore's professor and mentor, renounced his belief in global warming. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When Revelle inveighed against "drastic" action, he was using that adjective in its literal sense - measures that would cost trillions of dollars. Up until his death, he thought that extreme measures were premature. But he continued to recommend immediate prudent steps to mitigate and delay climatic warming. Some of those steps go well beyond anything Gore or other national politicians have yet to advocate.
Legacy
During his last decade at UCSD and SIO, Revelle continued to work and teach. In the early 1980s, he taught undergraduate STPA seminars twice a year, in Energy and Development (mainly on problems in Africa), the Carbon Dioxide Problem (known now as the Global WarmingGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
problem), and Marine Policy.
In 1986 he won the Balzan Prize
Balzan Prize
The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man.-Rewards and assets:Each year the...
for Oceanography/Climatology.
A 1990 heart attack forced him to move his course to the Scripps Institution from the Revelle College provost's office, where he continued to teach the Marine Policy program until his death the following year. In 1991, he was awarded the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
by President George H.W. Bush (one of about 500 recipients in the 20th Century). He remarked to a reporter: "I got it for being the grandfather of the greenhouse effect."
Revelle died in San Diego on July 15, 1991 of complications of cardiac arrest. He was survived by his wife, Ellen Clark Revelle (1910-2009) , three daughters, and one son, William
William Revelle
William Revelle is a psychology professor at Northwestern University working in personality psychology. Revelle studies the biological basis of personality and motivation, psychometric theory, the structure of daily mood, and models of attention and memory. He is a proponent of and contributor to...
, as well as numerous grandchildren. In his honor, a new research vessel at the Scripps Institution was christened R/V Roger Revelle
R/V Roger Revelle (AGOR-24)
R/V Roger Revelle is a research vessel operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography under charter agreement with Office of Naval Research as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet. It was named for scientist Roger Revelle.-Built in Mississippi:Roger Revelle was...
.