Reid Bryson

Reid Bryson ( June 7, 1920 - June 11, 2008 ) was an American geologist and meteorologist . He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison . By 1941 he had studied geology at Denison University . He became a soldier with the Air Weather Service during the war and retired with the rank of major. He received his PhD in meteorology from the University of Chicago in 1948 . As early as 1946 he became a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and from 1948 headed the department of meteorology, which became one of the most important departments of its kind in the USA. He is considered the father of scientific meteorology in the United States. In 1970 he became the first director of the local institute for environmental studies.

Viewpoints

Reid Bryson was one of the early and sharpest critics of the - now outdated - old American assumption that the first settlement of the double continent took place at the end of the most recent Ice Age from Siberia via Beringia through an 'ice-free corridor' through which groups of hunters and gatherers first to North America had advanced. Based on the results of his paleoclimatological studies, he stated that this corridor could only have been created long after the arrival of the 'First Americans'. Beringia was also hostile to life at the end of the Ice Age and was characterized by " miserable meteorological conditions, lower temperatures and stronger winds than those " " as found on the surface of the ice sheet. "

In the 1970s, Bryson argued that the cooling effect of suspended solids from industrial emissions and increased dust input from agriculture into the atmosphere would outweigh the warming effect of human CO ₂ emissions. He feared that there could be a long-term cooling of the climate and thus a food shortage. As a solution he advocated thrift , mankind should use less fossil fuels and switch to solar energy.

“In fact, both the amount of suspended solids and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are increasing. It's just that the cooling effect caused by the former increases faster than the warming effect caused by the latter. "

Later belonged to the skeptics of the thesis of man-made global warming, which he considered natural and inevitable.

“The whole argument about whether the temperature is going up or down is absurd. Of course it goes up - shortly after 1800, before the Industrial Revolution, because we come from the Little Ice Age and not because we are putting more carbon dioxide into the air. "

Publications (selection)

Bryson wrote over 230 articles and 5 books.

• RA Bryson, Airmasses, Streamlines, and the Boreal Forest 1966: Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Geography Branch
• RA Bryson, FK Hare, Climates of North America 1974: Elsevier Scientific Pub. Co New York
• RA Bryson & TJ Murray, Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World's Changing Weather , 1977: University of Wisconsin Press
• RA Bryson, A Perspective on Climatic Change , Science , Volume 184, Issue 4138, pp. 753-760. Publication Date: 05/1974
• Bryson RA, Goodman BM, Volcanic Activity and Climatic Changes Science, 1980

Honors

Bryson was awarded the UN Environment Program's Global 500 Award in 1990.

His book Climates of Hunger received the Banta Medal, an award from the Wisconsin Library Association for Wisconsin authors for its successful blend of literary prose and science.

Web links

• Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin, May 2007
• Volcanic Eruptions and Aerosol Optical Depth Data, 2002

Individual evidence

1. ^ UW prof Bryson, climatology pioneer, dies at 88 . In: The Capital Times , June 12, 2008. Retrieved November 5, 2009. 
2. ↑ Reid Bryson, cit. after Jeffrey Goodman, American Genesis, New York (Summit Books), 1981, p. 65
3. ^ Alan Anderson Jr .: Weather Forecast for the Future :? In: Lakeland Ledger . December 29, 1974 ( scan ).
4. ^ ^{A b} Bill Hanley: Reid Bryson: University of Wisconsin Climatologist and Meteorologist University of Wisconsin climatologist and meteorologist. Dr. Reid Bryson discusses the history of the earth's climate, what affects modern industrial society has had on climate, and how the climate might change as a result. In: motherearthnews. March 1976, accessed on June 24, 2016 : “Actually the amounts of both particulate matter and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are increasing. It's just that the cooling effect caused by the first is increasing faster than the warming effect caused by the second. " 
5. ↑ Dave Hoopman: The Faithful Heretic: A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions (en) . In: Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News , May 2007. Archived from the original on September 13, 2007 Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved April 21, 2008.  
6. ↑ Overview ( Memento of the original dated May 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ VN award ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Banta Medal  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.