French climatologist Claude Lorius, who was one of the first scientists to prove the impact of CO2 emissions on the climate, has died. His publisher and Jérôme Chappellaz, his former colleague at the national research institute CNRS, told AFP on Thursday that the co-founder of climate research died on Tuesday at the age of 91.
Lorius dedicated himself in particular to the study of the ice surfaces on earth. Since his first expedition to the South Pole in 1957, he has spent a total of six years in Antarctica on various research missions.
This gave Lorius the idea of examining the air bubbles trapped in deep layers of ice. In this way, the composition of the air including its content of greenhouse gases such as CO2 can be reconstructed. This in turn allows conclusions to be drawn regarding the Earth’s climate over the past millennia.
Since the 1970s, Lorius has been investigating the assumption that mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. During several Antarctic expeditions, he was able to collect ice cores up to 150,000 years old and use their analysis to reconstruct a complete climate cycle.
The Frenchman noticed that the temperature curves changed in a regular rhythm. From the time when the CO2 content in the atmosphere increased as a result of the Industrial Revolution, temperatures also rose significantly. Lorius published the results of his groundbreaking research in the journal “Nature” in 1987. As a result, the glaciologist campaigned to combat the causes of climate change.
