| RefNo | EC/2006/47 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Crutzen, Paul Josef: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Citation | Paul Crutzen has been the most innovative figure in atmospheric chemistry for the last three decades. For his work identifying the processes which control the formation and removal of atmospheric ozone he, together Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, received the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. In 1970, working as a Research Fellow at Oxford, he proposed that catalytic reactions involving NO and NO2 were involved in ozone chemistry in the stratosphere which led to the possibility of ozone depletion by large fleets of supersonic aircraft. He also showed that oxidation of N2O in the biosphere could be the main source of stratospheric nitrogen oxides. Crutzen next addressed ozone in the troposphere showing that it was mainly controlled by processes occurring in the troposphere (rather than introduction from the stratosphere) in which again the oxides of nitrogen play major catalytic roles. In 1976 Crutzen hypothesized that carbonyl sulphide (OCS) could be the main source of sulphur for the stratospheric aerosol layer. This work assumed particular relevance after the discovery of the `ozone hole' in 1985 when it was realised that stratospheric particles provided surfaces for the catalytic chlorine activations leading to rapid ozone loss. Together with Dr F Arnold, Crutzen proposed that the particles consisted of a mixture of H2SO4/H2O/HNO3. In the early 1980s Crutzen was much involved in studies of the so-called nuclear winter. Since 1980 Paul Crutzen has directed, at the Max Planck Institute at Mainz, one of the world's leading research centres in atmospheric chemistry. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA9246 | Crutzen; Paul Josef (1933 - 2021) | 1933 - 2021 |