Home > Media releases > 2005

THE CHANGING ATMOSPHERE IN 2005
11 March 2005

More than 200 people gathered at the Shine Dome on 21 February to hear U.S. Nobel Laureate, Professor F. Sherwood Rowland's public lecture, 'The changing atmosphere in 2005'. The transcript of the lecture is now available on the Australian Academy of Science website at www.science.org.au/events/rowland.

Professor Rowland, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, gave an enlightening talk on the chemical changes that are happening in the Earth's atmosphere. He discussed the effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the ozone layer and the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Climate models predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide levels will result in an overall warming of the Earth. So, what difference does it make if we increase the temperature of the Earth?

'You would get a lot more warming in the North Polar region,' said Professor Rowland. 'If you melt ice up here, then that's fresh water that is being added, and the measurements do show that the water in the Arctic Ocean is freshening and getting a little less salty.'

Glaciers will retreat. 'As glaciers melt and ice that had been on the land is now water, that raises the sea level,' Professor Rowland said.

He also pointed to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, where 4 million acres of spruce died. 'It is a warming effect, the warming being in the winter in that region not being as cold as before and the spruce bark beetle didn't winter-kill. When it didn't winter-kill, then it flourished very rapidly, and when it did that it killed all the trees,' said Professor Rowland.

'So the question of what the effect of global warming will be is one of many things, some of them biological, a lot of them having to do with water distribution,' Professor Rowland said.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Professor Rowland spoke of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 which led to a ban on CFC production. The result is that levels of some CFCs in the atmosphere are stabilising and others are decreasing.

'It means the Montreal Protocol is working extremely well,' said Professor Rowland. 'There are a whole lot of things that can be done, once you decide that you are going to do it.'

The full transcript and accompanying presentation slides are available on the Academy's website at www.science.org.au/events/rowland.

Professor Rowland is the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. His visit to Australia was sponsored by the Trustees of the Kenneth Myer Bequest to the Howard Florey Institute.