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People Behind the Science

James Ephraim Lovelock (1919–)

ames Lovelock is an English scientist, spe- he discovered chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) According to Lovelock’s theory, life and
Jcializing in the atmospheric sciences, who by monitoring what had been thought to the environment are inextricably linked and
began the study of chlorofluorocarbons be clean Atlantic air on the west coast of mu tually dependent. The rocks, oceans,
(CFCs) in the 1960s and who invented the Ireland, using the electron capture detec- and at mosphere, and all living things are

concept of Earth as a single organism—the tor he had invented at NIMR (which mea- part of one great organism that has evolved
Gaia hypothesis. sures minute traces of atmo spheric gases). through the eons. Life regulates the atmo-
Born in London on July 26, 1919, However, it was not until he accumulated sphere, and the atmosphere provides the
Lovelock was educated at London and the money to travel to the Antarctic in conditions necessary for life. Thus, Earth
Manchester universities in the early years 1971 that he was able to corroborate this has maintained a more or less constant tem-
of World War II. Graduating in 1941, he finding by detecting more CFCs. His dis- perature (unlike stars, which get hotter as
worked at the National Institute for Medi- covery sparked research by U.S. chemist F. they age). The theory has not been properly
cal Research (NIMR) in London on war- Sherwood Rowland (1927– ) and Mexican accepted in the formal traditional sciences
time problems such as the measurement of chemist Mario Molina (1943– ), who pre- but has provoked debate and speculation
blood pressure under water, the freezing of dicted the destruction of the ozone layer by on the planet’s reaction to the greenhouse
viable cells, and the design of an acoustic human use of CFCs in 1974. effect—will it be able to look after itself
anemometer. Twenty years later, feeling Lovelock presented his Gaia hypothesis and adapt to these new conditions? In The
stifled by the security of his position at in print first in Gaia: A New Look at Life on Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living
the institute, Lovelock gave up his job and Earth (1979). Dismissed by some scientists Earth (1988), Lovelock evolves and refines
worked briefly for NASA on the first lunar as pseudoscientific but seen as a workable the nature of Gaia and discusses the green-
Surveyor mission in California. hypothesis by others, it has been widely house effect, acid rain, the depletion of
Determined not to become part of an accepted by conservationists, ecologists, the ozone layer, and other topics in detail,
institution—a government department, uni- Greens, and “New Age” thinkers. (The demonstrating the geophysical interactions
versity, or multinational company—which name Gaia was suggested by English nov- of atmo sphere, oceans, climate, and Earth’s
he believes compromises the freedom of elist William Golding, Lovelock’s neighbor crust that are comfortably regulated by the
scientists to express themselves, he left in Wiltshire, after the Greek earth god- use of the Sun’s energy by living organisms.
NASA in 1964. Income from his inventions, dess who drew the living world forth from Lovelock is president of the British
especially from Hewlett-Packard, helped Chaos.) Existing theories held that the evo- Marine Biology Association, a fellow of the
him to support himself and his family while lution of plants and animals is distinct from Royal Society, and visiting professor of
he developed his Gaia hypothesis. In 1966, the evolution of the inanimate planet. cyber netics at Reading University, England.

Source: From the Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography. © Research Machines plc 2003. All Rights Reserved. Helicon Publishing is a division of Research Machines.

inland fogs, those that form away from bodies of water. Other the fog simply evaporates back to the state of invisible water
types of fog may form somewhere else, such as in the humid vapor molecules.
air over an ocean, and then move inland. Many fogs that occur Clouds, like fogs, are made up of tiny droplets of wa-
along coastal regions were formed over the ocean and then car- ter that have been condensed from the air. Luke Howard, an
ried inland by breezes. A third type of fog looks much like mist English weather observer, made one of the first cloud classifica-
rising from melting snow on a street, mist rising over a body of tion schemes. He used the Latin terms cirrus (curly), cumulus
water into cold air, or mist rising over streets after a summer (piled up), and stratus (spread out) to identify the basic shapes
rain shower. These are examples of a temporary fog that forms of clouds (Figure 22.19). The clouds usually do not occur just
as a lot of water vapor is added to cool air. This is a cool fog, in these basic cloud shapes but in combinations of the different
like other fogs, and is not hot as the mistlike appearance may shapes. Later, Howard’s system was modified by expanding the
lead you to believe. different shapes of clouds into 10 classes by using the basic cloud
Sometimes a news report states something about the Sun shapes and altitude as criteria. Clouds give practical hints about
“burning off” a fog. A fog does not burn, of course, because it the approaching weather. The relationship between the different
is made up of droplets of water. What the reporter really means cloud shapes and atmospheric conditions and what clouds can
is that the Sun’s radiation will increase the temperature, which mean about the coming weather are discussed in chapter 23. (For
increases the air’s capacity to hold water vapor. With an in- a worked example on this material, see the chapter 22 resources
creased capacity to hold water, the relative humidity drops, and on www.mhhe.com/tillery.)

558 CHAPTER 22 The Atmosphere of Earth 22-18