Swedes in the Lead of Climate Control

Swedish scientists have played a leading role in global climate modeling: Svante Arrhenius studied the greenhouse effects of CO2. Carl-Gustaf Rossby pioneered computational weather forecasting sharing Arrhenius concern about CO2. His student Bert Bolin took the issue one step further in a 500 page report of a 1985 conference leading up to the following warning:

• In the first half of the next century a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than any in man's history.

Bert Bolin was the first chairman of the UN International Panel on Climate Change IPCC 1988-1998 forming the basis of the Kyoto Protocol on control of CO2 emission negociated in December 1997.

Bert Bolin passed away in January 2008, at 82. His successor is Erland Källen.

Al Gore told Bert Bolin in a written statement in December 2007: 

• Bert, you set up the framework for the IPCC and without your contributions we would not have come to where we are today. Thank you for starting the process.