PAOC Spotlights

Introducing Atmospheric Chemist Prof. Susan Solomon

Thu December 29th, 2011
Helen Hill

 

 

In this interview Prof. Solomon talks about her work and some of the things she is looking forward to at MIT. 

Susan Solomon is widely recognized as a leader in the field of atmospheric science. She is well known for having pioneered the theory explaining why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtaining some of the first chemical measurements that helped to establish the chlorofluorocarbons as its cause. She is also the author of several influential scientific papers in climate science, including one on the irreversibility of the climate change problem, and a popular book on Antarctic history, The Coldest March [selected among '2001 Books of the Year' lists of the New York Times, the Economist (UK), and the Independent (UK)]. Among her many awards, she received the 1999 National Medal of Science (the highest scientific honor in the US), as well as the Grande Medaille (the highest award of the French Academy of Sciences) and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the Acadameia Europaea. She also co-led Working Group I of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and is the author of several books. Time magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

Solomon has been a scientist at NOAA since 1981, and an adjoint professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder since 1982. She joins the PAOC faculty in January 2012. 

[Title image for the video: Solomon (with a few of the locals) on the ice runway of McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in September 1987 - Source: S. Solomon]