Susan Solomon wins the Volvo Environment Prize for 2009 - delivering findings on ozone layer depletion and prominent on the UN climate panel


Susan Solomon wins the Volvo Environment Prize for 2009 - delivering findings on
ozone layer depletion and prominent on the UN climate panel

One of the world's leading atmospheric scientists will arrive in Sweden this
autumn to receive what has become over the last 20 years one of the scientific
world's most respected environmental prizes: the Volvo Environment Prize,
awarded by an independent foundation. In expeditions to Antarctica Susan Solomon
was able to map the mechanisms underlying the hole in the ozone layer. In recent
years, she has led the most prestigious working group within the UN's climate
panel and recently warned that manmade global climate changes may be
irreversible — that is, even if human carbon dioxide emissions are stopped, the
changes they are provoking can last more than 1000 years.

Dr Susan Solomon has played a key role in global atmospheric studies ever since,
as a 30-year-old research scientist, she led an expedition to Antarctica to
study a phenomenon discovered in the 1980s: the depletion of the vital
stratospheric ozone layer over the Antarctic. Her research team was able to
confirm fears that CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons, were causing the damaging process
in which chlorine atoms break off oxygen atoms from the ozone layer, thereby
thinning it and reducing its capacity to protect us from harmful ultraviolet
radiation. The clear evidence she and other researchers produced led to
international agreements that banned the production of CFCs, then used for
refrigeration among other things.

In recent years, she and many other atmospheric scientists have been
concentrating on climate change. In a recent scientific article, she warned that
the climate change generated by the estimated emissions of greenhouse gases in
the following decades will lead to processes that are largely irreversible, that
is, they will last at least 1000 years. This is because the oceans absorb carbon
dioxide only slowly, prolonging those processes.

“In a simple analogy, our emissions of carbon dioxide mean that we are cranking
the thermostat up and that we don't know how to crank it down again,” says Susan
Solomon. 

Her new findings can appear depressing. If carbon dioxide emissions don't drop
sharply, climate change will last more than thirty generations. But Susan
Solomon doesn't think the issue is pessimism contra optimism:

“It is incredibly important to have correct scientific information when making
decisions. I find it encouraging that people today, across the world, are
absorbing increased knowledge about the climate issue. And when we now know how
long the effect will last, I believe people and governments will make better
decisions about how much more carbon dioxide they want to emit.”

The Volvo Environment Prize jury consists of several leading international
researchers. Their citation says, in part:

”Dr Susan Solomon is an outstanding atmospheric chemist and physicist whose
pioneering scientific contributions have had major impacts on crucial
environmental policies.”

Susan Solomon herself says in a comment on the jury's decision:

“I am obviously very honoured. As a scientist, I am able to work with things
that other people really care about, which is a privilege that brings humility.”

Susan Solomon will be in Sweden in early November to receive the Volvo
Environment Prize at a ceremony and seminar in Stockholm. As well as the
diploma, the winner gets a cash sum of SEK 1.5 million.

Dr Susan Solomon is Senior Scientist at the Chemical Sciences Division, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, USA. She was the
Head Project Scientist on two scientific expeditions to Antarctica — the
National Ozone Expeditions — in 1986 and 1987. She played a key role as co-chair
in working group 1 within the IPCC, the UN's climate panel, helping the world
comprehend the seriousness of climate change. Susan Solomon's current research
work on atmospheric and oceanographic models demonstrates that the levels of
carbon dioxide expected in this century will irrevocably lead to changes lasting
at least 1000 years, such as widespread drought in certain regions and rises in
the sea level that will drown many low-lying coastal areas.

23 June, 2009

For more information about the Volvo Environment Prize and this year's winner,
contact Professor Oliver Lindqvist, tel +46 (0)31-772 28 62 or Professor Carl
Folke, tel +46 (0) 708-450102.

The Volvo Environment Prize is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It is an annual
award to individuals who explore the way to a sustainable world. The prize is
awarded by an independent foundation with a jury consisting of internationally
renowned figures in the environmental field. Since the first award in 1990, the
prize has gone to 36 people. Among them are many well-known names and three
Nobel Prize winners. More about the Volvo Environment Prize and high resolution
photos of the laureate: www.environment-prize.com

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