F. Sherwood Rowland passes away at 84
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Image List:
Image 1: UCI atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood "Sherry" Rowland, whose groundbreaking work on ozone depletion earned him a Nobel Prize, enjoys the view from the campus building renamed in his honor in 1998. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 2: F. Sherwood Rowland joins Vice President Al Gore and President Bill Clinton at the White House on July 24, 1997, for a roundtable discussion of global climate change. He famously concluded his presentation with a call to action, asking: "If not us, who? If not now, when?" Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite
Image 3: F. Sherwood Rowland, shown here in the 1930s, was born June 28, 1927, and grew up in Delaware, Ohio. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 4: Rowland, right, reviews building plans for the fledgling UCI campus with Ivan Hinderaker, then vice chancellor for academic affairs, in May 1964. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 5: Research by Rowland, here in his UCI laboratory, brought worldwide attention to the impact of human-generated greenhouse gases on the planet. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 6: Rowland, left, works in the lab with postdoctoral researcher Mario J. Molina in January 1975. Twenty years later, they shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry - along with Paul J. Crutzen - "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 7: Rowland and Molina first published their research in "Nature" magazine in 1974. They theorized that chlorofluorocarbons - such as those in aerosol cans, refrigerators and some plastic foams - lead to the destruction of ozone molecules in the atmosphere. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 8: Initially ridiculed, the findings by Rowland and Molina were verified by the National Academy of Sciences in 1976, and in 1978 CFC-based aerosols were banned in the United States. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 9: Rowland, left, receives the Nobel Prize in chemistry from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on Dec. 10, 1995. The Nobel Foundation noted that the work by Rowland, Molina and Crutzen "contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences." Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 10: Mobbed by admiring students on the UCI campus, Rowland obliges one by signing a newspaper heralding his Nobel win. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 11: Rowland and his wife, Joan, share a laugh with first lady Hillary Clinton during a White House reception for Nobel laureates on Nov. 15, 1995. Official White House photograph; courtesy of UCI Libraries' Special Collections & Archives
Image 12: Rowland, in back, oversees lab work by students Rama Iyer, Nun-Yi Wang, Donald Blake and Nichola Blake, from left, in 1991. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 13: Rowland, center, confers with Donald Blake, left, a former student who became a UCI chemistry professor himself and who collaborated with Rowland for more than 30 years.
Image 14: Rowland and his wife, Joan, were married for nearly 60 years. Courtesy of UCI Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives
Image 15: Rowland, here in his lab, was a founding faculty member at UCI and the first chair of its Department of Chemistry, arriving on campus in 1964. Carlos Puma
Image 16: Rowland's work contributed to the passing of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement to phase out CFC products. Rowland was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978 and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1993. Carlos Puma
Image 17: Besides the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Rowland, here in his UCI lab in 2010, won the 1983 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the 1989 Japan Prize in Environmental Science & Technology, the American Chemical Society's 1993 Peter Debye Award, the 1994 Albert Einstein World Award of Science, and the American Geophysical Union's 1994 Roger Revelle Medal. Steve Zylius / University Communications
Image 18: Rowland died Saturday, March 10, 2012, at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 84. Steve Zylius / University Communications
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UCI loses the legendary F. Sherwood Rowland
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