Homage to Gaia by James Lovelock

Author:James Lovelock [James Lovelock]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780285642560
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Published: 2014-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

When I returned home from Logan, I was surprised to find a letter waiting for me from Dr Kauffman. It was a friendly letter and mainly to ask for help with a problem involving the electron capture detector. It was not an apology for having denied me my chance to speak, but reading between the lines, I sensed his need to make amends.

It was not long afterwards that Frank Bower and Ray McCarthy asked me whether I thought it feasible to set up a global monitoring network to measure CFCs in the atmosphere. Their reason for asking was that they had seen a proposal to the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the academic grant-funding agency of the industry, from Professor Ronald Prinn of the MIT. He proposed calculating the atmospheric residence times of the chlorofluorocarbons from accurate measurements of their atmospheric abundances in both hemispheres. Knowledge of the residence times was important for calculating whether CFCs were as dangerous as the stratospheric chemists feared. My reply was, yes, that four stations, two in the northern hemisphere and two in the southern hemisphere, should be sufficient to monitor long-lived gases like CFCs. I was less certain, however, that the required accuracy, better than five per cent, could easily be achieved. I offered to install immediately a new gas chromatograph at my monitoring station in Adrigole in Ireland. I would run it continuously for a year to check its reliability and accuracy. Here was an example of the value of independent science. If I had asked the CMA for money to buy the GC and funds to test it for a year they would have provided it, but I would have had to wait a year for their decision, and longer for the money. As it was, I purchased immediately from my own pocket a new gas Chromatograph from Hewlett Packard and expected that the CMA would reimburse me sometime later. In fact, they never did. The year’s trial at Adrigole showed that an unattended gas Chromatograph could make as many as six automatic measurements a day. Moreover, the accuracy of the measurements appeared to be sufficient. Prinn’s proposals were then accepted and funded. The Adrigole station was included within the atmospheric long-range experiment (ALE). The other stations were in Barbados, Samoa in the Pacific, Cape Grim in Tasmania, and Cape Mears in Oregon, USA. They were all set up exactly according to my instructions, using the same equipment that I had tested in Adrigole. Prinn’s proposal was justified and we now know the residence times of CFC gases. These stations, except Adrigole, still operate and provide valuable information on the abundance of CFCs and other halocarbons.

By 1978 I could no longer run the Adrigole station, and I passed the management of it to Peter Simmonds of the ALE experimental team. Helen’s increasing disability from multiple sclerosis made this decision unavoidable, since she was no longer able to travel with me to Ireland. Sadly, my departure from Adrigole led to the closure of the station.

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