Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
1
the Cold wAr roots
oF globAl wArming
in the archives of the scriPPs institution of oceanograPhy is
a photograph of a young Roger Revelle— age twenty-seven or so— sorting
specimens on the deck of the collecting vessel
E. W. Scripps.
The year is
circa 1936, and Revelle's setup looks decidedly ad hoc. He sits on what look
to be the wooden slats of the aft deck, right leg bent beneath him and left
leg splayed out, amid an assortment of mason jars, collecting rags, and a
bucket. In a black wool sailor's jacket, with one sleeve rolled up and cuffed
white trousers stained at the knees, he is hardly the picture of a careful,
plodding scientist. He looks a little bit like I imagine James Dean might
have, had he played an oceanographer: intensely focused and unflappably
cool, taking care of the business of collecting specimens while enjoying the
ocean breeze on a boat named for a member of the family into which he had
married— the namesake also of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
from which he would earn a Ph.D. and which he would eventually direct.
More than anything, as Revelle looms over the little mason jars, his hand
enveloping whatever tiny specimen he is picking up at the moment, the
man in the photograph— the self-appointed “'granddaddy' of the theory
of global warming”— looks altogether too big for whatever specific form
of science he is conducting.
1
Roger Revelle was a good oceanographer. He was an excellent science
administrator, and he was an even better science advocate. He was also
