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 The 2002 Tyler
Prize for Environmental Achievement is being awarded to Wallace
S. Broecker to honor him for his pioneering discoveries using
geological clues to understand the ocean's role in global climate
change. Further, Broecker's research has been instrumental in
developing the use of a wide range of geochemical tracers to
describe basic biological, chemical and physical processes that
govern the behavior of carbon dioxide in the oceans and the interactions
of oceanic carbon dioxide with the atmosphere.
Dr. Broecker's studies have long been at the core of understanding
how the glacial climate system worked. He and his students used
a number of new approaches to study the earth's climate, including
the use of radiocarbon and other isotopes to date marine sediments.
His studies on glacial/interglacial climate change provided the
first definitive evidence in support of the Milankovitch Theory,
which held that variations in earth's orbit around the sun and
the resulting changes in insolation induce the glacial/interglacial
climate cycle. Broecker proposed the concept of a global oceanic "conveyor belt" of currents that transports heat around
the globe and is tied to abrupt shifts of the earth's climate.
He identified the importance of changes in North Atlantic deep-water
formation as a leading candidate for the trigger of abrupt climate
changes over the last few million years.
Dr. Broecker was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 29,
1931. He received his AB degree from Columbia University in 1953
and his PhD degree in 1958. He immediately joined the faculty
of Columbia in 1959 as an Assistant Professor and rose through
the ranks to become a Full Professor in 1964. He has spent his
entire five-decade long career at Columbia and has held the title
of Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at
Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory since 1977.
Dr. Broecker has been a prolific researcher, teacher and author.
He has published over 400 scientific articles and he shows no
signs of slowing down, as his recent vita lists over a dozen
articles in press and another half dozen in preparation. He is
the author of several textbooks, beginning in 1971 with his work
on "Chemical Equilibria in the Earth". He authored
"Chemical Oceanography" in 1974, "Tracers in the
Sea" in 1982, and "How to Build a Habitable Planet"
in 1985. His two most recent books, "The Glacial World According
to Wally" and "Greenhouse Puzzles" were published
in 1992 and 1994.
Dr. Broecker has been a member of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences since 1979. He is also a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of both the American and
European Geophysical Unions. Numerous medals and awards have
been bestowed on him. He is the recipient of both the Maurice
W. Ewing Medal (1979) and the Roger Revelle Medal (1995) from
the American Geophysical Union. The Geological Society of America
awarded him the Arthur L. Day Medal in 1984 and the Don J. Easterbrook
Distinguished Scientist Award in 2000. In 1985 the A. G. Huntsman
Foundation awarded him the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence
in the Marine Sciences. In 1986, he was honored with three major
awards for his scientific contributions, the Urey Medal from
the European Geophysical Union, the Alexander Agassiz Medal by
the National Academy of Sciences and the V. M. Goldschmidt Award
from the Geochemical Society. The Geological Society of London
bestowed the Wollaston Medal on him in 1990. The Blue Planet
Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation of Tokyo was awarded to
him in 1996 for achievements in global environmental research.
Also in 1996, President William Jefferson Clinton bestowed the
USA's highest honor the National Medal of Science for "his
pioneering contributions in understanding chemical changes in
the ocean and atmospheres," as well as for research on global
climate change.
Broecker has played an active role in the environmental policy
debate and in informing the broader public. He has been a leading
voice warning of the potential danger of increased greenhouse
gases in earth's atmosphere. He has written articles for the
popular press, testified before congressional committees and
briefed officials at the highest levels of government in order
to bring scientific insights to bear on policy issues. Professor
Broecker has an unparalled record of innovative experimental
contributions to global change studies and has made important
contributions to the global change policy dialog. Dr. Broecker's
studies have long been at the core of understanding how the glacial
climate system worked. He and his students used a number of new
approaches to study the earth's climate, including the use of
radiocarbon and other isotopes to date marine sediments. His
studies on glacial/interglacial climate change provided the first
definitive evidence in support of the Milankovitch Theory, which
held that variations in earth's orbit around the sun and the
resulting changes in insolation induce the glacial/interglacial
climate cycle. Broecker proposed the concept of a global oceanic "conveyor belt" of currents that transports heat around
the globe and is tied to abrupt shifts of the earth's climate.
He identified the importance of changes in North Atlantic deep-water
formation as a leading candidate for the trigger of abrupt climate
changes over the last few million years.
Dr. Broecker was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 29,
1931. He received his AB degree from Columbia University in 1953
and his PhD degree in 1958. He immediately joined the faculty
of Columbia in 1959 as an Assistant Professor and rose through
the ranks to become a Full Professor in 1964. He has spent his
entire five-decade long career at Columbia and has held the title
of Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at
Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory since 1977.
Dr. Broecker has been a prolific researcher, teacher and author.
He has published over 400 scientific articles and he shows no
signs of slowing down, as his recent vita lists over a dozen
articles in press and another half dozen in preparation. He is
the author of several textbooks, beginning in 1971 with his work
on "Chemical Equilibria in the Earth". He authored
"Chemical Oceanography" in 1974, "Tracers in the
Sea" in 1982, and "How to Build a Habitable Planet"
in 1985. His two most recent books, "The Glacial World According
to Wally" and "Greenhouse Puzzles" were published
in 1992 and 1994.
Dr. Broecker has been a member of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences since 1979. He is also a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of both the American and
European Geophysical Unions. Numerous medals and awards have
been bestowed on him. He is the recipient of both the Maurice
W. Ewing Medal (1979) and the Roger Revelle Medal (1995) from
the American Geophysical Union. The Geological Society of America
awarded him the Arthur L. Day Medal in 1984 and the Don J. Easterbrook
Distinguished Scientist Award in 2000. In 1985 the A. G. Huntsman
Foundation awarded him the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence
in the Marine Sciences. In 1986, he was honored with three major
awards for his scientific contributions, the Urey Medal from
the European Geophysical Union, the Alexander Agassiz Medal by
the National Academy of Sciences and the V. M. Goldschmidt Award
from the Geochemical Society. The Geological Society of London
bestowed the Wollaston Medal on him in 1990. The Blue Planet
Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation of Tokyo was awarded to
him in 1996 for achievements in global environmental research.
Also in 1996, President William Jefferson Clinton bestowed the
USA's highest honor the National Medal of Science for "his
pioneering contributions in understanding chemical changes in
the ocean and atmospheres," as well as for research on global
climate change.
Broecker has played an active role in the environmental policy
debate and in informing the broader public. He has been a leading
voice warning of the potential danger of increased greenhouse
gases in earth's atmosphere. He has written articles for the
popular press, testified before congressional committees and
briefed officials at the highest levels of government in order
to bring scientific insights to bear on policy issues. Professor
Broecker has an unparalled record of innovative experimental
contributions to global change studies and has made important
contributions to the global change policy dialog.
 Dr. Tungsheng
Liu is being honored with the 2002 Tyler Prize for his pioneering
contributions in recognizing and using terrestrial sediments
to understand global environmental change. He has been a trailblazer
in developing ways to measure paleoclimatic change over the last
2.5 million years through studies of loess, a windblown dust,
that forms thick deposits over much of central China.
Professor Liu is recognized as the father of paleoenvironmental
research on Chinese loess-soil sequences. Liu's research over
the last 5 decades has clearly demonstrated that loess provides
a complete and accurate continental record of environmental change.
The fine-grained dust is now widely considered one of three reliable
sources of past environmental information the other two
are deep-sea sediments and arctic ice cores. Liu's accumulated
work on the loess/paleosol sequences has also led to a deeper
knowledge and understanding of the variability through time of
the Southeast Asian monsoon system.
Liu's research group was instrumental in discovering the underlying
causes of Keshan disease, which affected thousands of people
in China and vexed the Chinese medical community for decades.
Keshan's is a debilitating disease of the heart muscle resulting
in cardiovascular failure. Liu's research group linked the disease
to deficiencies of trace elements in local soil and water, a
problem now countered by supplements of selenium and other nutrients.
These research findings have saved thousands of lives. Further
contributions to solving environmental problems in China, resulted
from Liu and his colleagues studies on vegetation recovery and
environmental geology, which helped government officials in China
improve overall environmental quality through urban construction
reform.
Dr. Liu was born on November 22, 1917 in Shenyang, Liaoning,
the Peoples Republic of China. He obtained his Bachelors degree
in Geology from the National Southwest Associated University
in Kunming in 1942 and finished his study in the Department of
Biology of National Central University in Nanjing in 1949. He
was employed as a Junior Geologist and Paleontologist for the
Geological Survey of China from 1945-1949 and was a Senior Geologist
with the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources in the Ministry
of Geology from 1949-1953. In 1953, he joined the Institute of
Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences as an Associate Professor
and advanced through the ranks to Professor. He was a Professor
in the Institute of Geochemistry at Guiyang from 1968 1979.
From 1979 to the present, he has been a professor at the Laboratory
of Quaternary Geology of the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences. During this time he has also served as the Secretary
General of the China Association for Sciences and Technology
from 1982-1986. He was Director of the China Science and Technology
Museum from 1982-1997. In 1985, he founded the Xi'an Laboratory
of Loess and Quaternary Geology and served as its Director until
1992.
Liu has been a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since
1980. He has been honored with numerous prizes and awards for
his scholarly research. He has three times been honored with
awards from The National Natural Science Prize of China. He received
the Chen Jiageng Award for Natural Sciences (Geology) in 1989
and in 1993 a distinguished award from the China Green Prize
of Environmental Science and Technology. In 1991, he was elected
as a fellow of Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He was
a recipient of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize in Earth Sciences in
1995 and was named an Academician of the International Eurasian
Academy of Sciences (IEAS) in 1996. Dr. Liu is a past President
of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and
a founding member of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
on Past Global Changes (PAGES).
Dr. Liu is an internationally known and highly respected geologist.
He has not only made considerable fundamental scientific contributions
but has shown deep dedication to the training and encouragement
of younger generations of Chinese scientists. His participation
and leadership in several international programs, has been a
major catalyst in initiating international environmental research
efforts that both supported the contributions of young Chinese
scientists and enabled many western scientists to participate
in research in China. Dr. Liu has had an enormous influence on
environmental geology internationally and in China.
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