Who Was Roger Revelle?

Every time you see a name on a building, there's and interesting story behind that man or woman.  We recognize many of the names, but more often we don't.  The name Roger Revelle is all over UCSD, but how many of us really know who he was?  I didn't, until I read an article in the UT about some of the important scientists at UCSD and their enormous influence on modern science, especially climate change.

Roger Revelle was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical Year in 1958 and was the first chairman of the Committee on Climate Change.  In 1957 Revelle co-authored a paper with Hans Suess suggesting that the Earth's oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide generated by man at a much slower rate than previously predicted by geoscientists, thereby suggesting that human gas emissions might create a "greenhouse effect" that would cause global warming over time.  This was almost 60 years ago!

During the 1950's, Revelle fought for the establishment of UCSD.  The UC Board of Regents initially wanted to expand UCLA, but due to the hard work of Revelle and others, UCSD enrolled it's first graduate students in 1960, and it's first undergraduate class in 1964.

Revelle's struggle to acquire land sent him head to head with Jonas Salk, and the animosity lasted the rest of his life.  Ravelle also had to deal with the La Jolla community, that refused to rent or sell property to Jews.  Jonas Salk faced the same discrimination.

Next time you look at the name on a college building, or any building for that matter, remember that that name was also a person, and he or she probably has an interesting story.