The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. “For their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Four faculty members at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences were acknowledged for their contributions to the IPCC.
Marvin Geller, a stratospheric expert and thirty-year veteran of international collaborations, was a key influence in crafting the 1987 United Nations Montreal Protocol to address the issue of ozone depletion. Broad compliance with the Protocol along with industry's creating of ozone-friendly substitutes for the now-controlled chemicals, has stabilized the ozone layer.
A recognized leader in the fields of climate change and atmospheric radiation transfer, Robert Cess found that since they have optical properties that change with their composition, clouds can reduce or increase global warming. This work was a critical element in the first IPCC Assessment Report that was published in 1990.
Minghua Zhang discovered two types of climate feedback processes: those that would speed climate change such as water vapor and those that would slow climate change, such as increased cooling in the upper troposphere, enabling the loss of system energy. This analysis was an essential element in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set benchmarks for reducing emissions.
Thanks to improved climate computer models, Edmund Chang was able to effectively assess how midlatitude storms morph under global warming, which aids greatly in catastrophe prediction of events like superstorms. Chang made major contributions to the fourth IPCC Assessment Report.