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1 gen 2022 · This text was first published by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer: “The ‘Anthropocene’”, in: Global Change Newsletter, 41 (May 2000): 17-18. The journal is out of print and the text is in the public domain.
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Paul J. Crutzen discovered how atmospheric pollutants can destroy stratospheric ozone, which protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation. He shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work with F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina, who had shown that such pollutants included chlorofluorocarbons. Combining rigorous research with a gift for communicating, Crutzen championed the term ‘Anthropocene’ to describe what he regarded as a new epoch, characterized by human dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth1. He has died, aged 87.
At a conference in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 2000, Crutzen stood up and proclaimed that we live in the “Anthropocene”. The term immediately caught on and stimulated discussion in many disciplines. The “age of humans” is now considered to have begun in the mid-twentieth century, as the exploitation of the planet’s resources accelerated. Crutzen regarded the concept as his most important contribution. It reflected his deep concerns about climate change and other environmental pressures in a world with a population that could reach ten billion in several decades.
Crutzen was born in Amsterdam, in 1933, and trained as a civil engineer. In the 1960s, he studied meteorology at the University of Stockholm, while working as a computer programmer to support his Finnish wife, Terttu Soininen, and family. As a graduate student, he combined his programming and scientific skills by building a computer model of the stratosphere. While seeking to explain the distribution of ozone at different heights, he discovered that nitrogen oxides could catalyse reactions that destroy ozone. In the early 1970s, when scientists began to discuss the levels of nitrogen oxides likely to be emitted by planned fleets of supersonic aircraft, he realized that anthropogenic emissions could damage the stratospheric ozone layer2. His work coincided with that of Molina and Rowland, who found that so, too, could chlorine-containing compounds used as propellants, solvents and refrigerants. In 1985, scientists discovered a ‘hole’ in the ozone layer over the Antarctic3.
Crutzen threw himself into the intense public debate on ozone depletion in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1980, he was director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and was appointed to a German parliamentary commission on preventive measures for protecting Earth’s atmosphere. Its report, published in 1989, influenced the drafting of policies about the atmosphere and climate (see go.nature.com/2rruji). Crutzen helped to lay the foundations of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, whose signatory states committed to phasing out ozone-depleting substances. As a consequence, harmful chlorine compounds have been banned, supersonic aircraft were limited to a few Concordes and the ozone layer now shows signs of recovery.
Crutzen was also the first to warn of the possibility of what came to be known as nuclear winter. In the 1970s, he had set up a stratospheric research programme for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration while also working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. In parallel, he developed an interest in the chemistry of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) and climate change, investigating sources of air pollution. One source, previously overlooked by researchers, was the burning of biomass in deforestation and agriculture, mostly in the tropics. He showed that its large-scale influence on tropospheric pollution was particularly significant in the tropics and much of the Southern Hemisphere, where other anthropogenic emissions (from fossil fuels, for example) were less prevalent than in the more industrialized north.
- Jos Lelieveld
- 2021
3 gen 2002 · It seems appropriate to assign the term 'Anthropocene' to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene — the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia.
- Paul J. Crutzen
- 2002
Paul J. Crutzen. For. the past three centuries, the effects of humans on the global environment have escalated. Because of these anthro-pogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, global climate may...
- Paul J. Crutzen
- 2002
14 feb 2021 · The Anthropocene: Paul Crutzen’s Epochal Legacy. He came to science late in his life, helped to preserve the Earth’s protective ozone, and fundamentally changed our views of nature and ourselves. By Christian Schwaegerl. February 14, 2021. Let the best of Anthropocene come to you.
This book outlines the development and perspectives of the Anthropocene concept by Paul J. Crutzen and his colleagues from its inception to its implications for the sciences, humanities, society and politics.
15 mar 2021 · The term and concept of the Anthropocene were introduced by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000 at a meeting of the Scientific Committee of the IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme) in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
