Profiles in Science for Science Librarians: Wallace Broecker

Abstract

Wallace Broecker is thought to be one of the greatest living geoscientists. During his fifty-plus year career at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in Palisades, New York, he has been very prolific and is a highly cited geoscientist. Broecker is probably best known for his theory of global ocean circulation, a “great ocean conveyor” that transports a significant amount of heat around the globe that can also trigger abrupt shifts in world climate. He unintentionally coined the phrase global warming in the title of one of his many papers and is very active to this day. His diverse research areas include paleoclimatology, environmental science, ocean chemistry, isotope geochemistry, and geochronology. Broecker is the winner of most of the awards in his field, including the Crafoord Prize in Geosciences.

Keywords:

• biography of scientists
• Wallace Broecker
• climate change
• environmental science
• geochemistry
• geochronology
• isotope chemistry
• ocean chemistry
• paleoclimatology