Stephen Henry Schneider

Stephen Henry Schneider, American climatologist (born Feb. 11, 1945, New York, N.Y.—died July 19, 2010, London, Eng.), warned the world about how man-made emissions threaten the Earth’s climate by causing global warming. As an initial member (1988) of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Schneider was one of the IPCC scientists who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with former U.S. vice president Al Gore for their work on educating the public about climate change. Schneider studied engineering and physics at Columbia University, New York City (B.S., 1966; Ph.D., 1971), and embarked on a career in climatology because of his commitment to environmental issues and the scarcity of experimental scientists in the field. He conducted studies of the impact of man-made particles on the Earth’s climate, developed mathematical models to predict the possible effects of global warming, and published more than 400 articles, many of which explain climatology to people with little or no scientific background. He also helped found the climate project at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., and the journal Climatic Change, which he edited until his death. In 1992 he joined the faculty at Stanford University. Schneider’s books include Global Warming (1989), Science as a Contact Sport (2009), and The Patient from Hell (2005), about his own successful treatment for a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

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Earth's To-Do List

Human action has triggered a vast cascade of environmental problems that now threaten the continued ability of both natural and human systems to flourish. Solving the critical environmental problems of global warming, water scarcity, pollution, and biodiversity loss are perhaps the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Will we rise to meet them?