Champion of science warned of climate change risk

The late Ralph J. Cicerone - a warning
about the grave potential  risks
of climate change.

Ralph J. Cicerone, who as a researcher and the president of the National Academy of Sciences issued an early warning about the grave potential risks of climate change, has died at his home in New Jersey. He was 73.

In 2001, while he was the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, Cicerone headed a panel commissioned by President George W. Bush that concluded unequivocally that "greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise".

The 11 leading scientists who composed the panel, including some who had been climate-change sceptics, were unanimous in reaffirming the mainstream scientific view on global warming just as Bush was preparing to join talks with European leaders who were outraged that he had recently rejected the global warming pact known as the Kyoto Protocol

Read Ralph Cicerone’s obituary in today’s Melbourne Age - “Champion of science warned of climate change risk.”