Wallace S. Broecker

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Wallace S. Broecker ("Wally") (1931-) is the Newberry Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and a scientist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Broecker's areas of research included Pleistocene geochronology, radiocarbon dating and chemical oceanography, including oceanic mixing based on stable and radioisotope distribution. This included research on the biogeochemical cycles of the element carbon and on the record of climate change contained in polar ice and ocean sediments.

He attended Wheaton College and interacted with J. Laurence Kulp and Paul Gast. Broecker then transferred to Columbia University. At Columbia, he worked at the Lamont Geological Observatory with W. Maurice Ewing and Walter Bucher.

Broecker has authored over 400 journal articles and 7 books. He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the role played by the ocean in triggering the abrupt climate changes which punctuated glacial time.

Dr. Broecker writes about his research, on mode changes in the Thermohaline Circulation: "We have clear evidence that different parts of the earth's climate system are linked in very subtle yet dramatic ways. The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth's climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change." ^[1]

Broecker is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and European Geophysical Union. He is the recipient of the National Medal of Science, Maurice W. Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Urey Medal of the European Association for Geochemistry,^[2] the V.M. Goldschmidt Award from the Geochemical Society,^[3] the Vetlesen Prize from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London, and the Roger Revelle Medal of the American Geophysical Union, and the Blue Planet Prize from The Asahi Glass Foundation. He is the 2006 recipient of the Crafoord Prize.

[edit] Selected Books

Broecker, Wallace S. & Virginia M. Oversby (1971), Chemical Equilibria in the Earth, McGraw-Hill Education, ISBN 0070079978
Broecker, Wallace S. (1974), Chemical oceanography, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ISBN 0155064371
Broecker, Wallace S. (1995), The glacial world according to Wally, Eldigio Press
Broecker, Wallace S. (1998), Greenhouse puzzles: Keeling's world, Martin's world, Walker's world, Eldigio Press
Broecker, Wallace S. (1993), Greenhouse puzzles, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University
Broecker, Wallace S. (1988), How to Build a Habitable Planet, Eldigio Press
Broecker, Wallace S. (1982), Tracers in the Sea, Eldigio Press