Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professor Paul Crutzen, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany (Dutch citizen), Professor Mario Molina, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and Department of Chemistry, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA and Professor F. Sherwood Rowland, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone. Paul J. Crutzen Mario J. Molina F. Sherwood Rowland Prize share: 1/3 Prize share: 1/3 Prize share: 1/3 • Paul Crutzen was born in 1933 in Amsterdam. Dutch citizen. Doctor’s degree in meteorology, Stockholm University, 1973. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and Academia Europaea. Professor Paul Crutzen, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, P.O. Box 3060 D-55020 Mainz, Germany. • Mario Molina was born in 1943 in Mexico City, Mexico. Ph.D. in physical chemistry, University of California, Berkeley. Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Professor Mario Molina, Department of Earth, © The Author(s) 2016 239 P.J. Crutzen and H.G. Brauch (eds.), Paul J. Crutzen: A Pioneer on Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change in the Anthropocene, Nobel Laureates 50, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27460-7 240 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences MIT 54—1312, Cambridge MA 02139, USA. • F. Sherwood Rowland was born in Delaware, Ohio, USA, 1927 and deceased in 2012. Doctor’s degree in chemistry, University of Chicago, 1952. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the US National Academy of Sciences, where he was Foreign Secretary. Source: “Press Release: The 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 3 Jan 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ chemistry/laureates/1995/press.html and at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_ prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/illpres/reading.html and for the Award Ceremony Speech by Professor Ingmar Grenthe of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/presentation- speech.html. Interview with Paul Crutzen by Astrid Gräslund at the meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, June 2000. Paul Crutzen talks about family back- ground, early education and interest in natural science; his work in the Institute of Meteorology in Stockholm (5:02); his discovery (6:55); the ozone layer (15:42); the Greenhouse Effect (19:10); ozone holes (23:43); and the consequences of a ‘Nuclear winter’ (27:09). See a Video of the Interview, 34 min., at: http://www. nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=734. Prof. Paul J. Crutzen on the eve of his 80th birthday on 2 December 2013 at the symposium The Anthropocene organized in his honour by the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz. Photo by Carsten Costard Max Planck Institute for Chemistry Aiming at an Integral Scientific Understanding of Chemical Processes in the Earth System from Molecular to Global Scales Current research at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz aims at an integral understanding of chemical processes in the Earth system, particularly in the atmosphere and biosphere. Investigations address a wide range of interactions between air, water, soil, life and climate in the course of Earth history up to today’s human-driven epoch, the Anthropocene: see at: http://www.mpic.de/en/employees/ honors-and-awards/the-anthropocene.html. Research at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry has been at the forefront of science throughout its existence. Since the Institute’s foundation in 1912, three of its directors were awarded with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Richard Willstätter in 1915 for the revelation of the structure of chlorophyll and other plant pigments, Otto Hahn in 1944 for the discovery of nuclear fission, and Paul Crutzen in 1995 for the elucidation of atmospheric ozone chemistry. The research departments and focal points of the Institute have gone through a history of change and scientific evolution. What began in 1912 with classical organic, inorganic and physical chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin evolved into radiochemistry and nuclear physics in the 1930s, © The Author(s) 2016 243 P.J. Crutzen and H.G. Brauch (eds.), Paul J. Crutzen: A Pioneer on Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change in the Anthropocene, Nobel Laureates 50, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27460-7 244 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry leading to the discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann. As the Institute was severely damaged towards the end of World War II it was moved to the Swabian Alps in today’s Baden-Wuerttemberg. There the chemists worked provisionally from 1944 to 1949 until the Institute moved a second time to the campus of the newly founded Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. At the same time it was integrated into the Max Planck Society, the successor of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Institute for Chemistry. Since 1959 the Institute also carries the name “Otto Hahn Institute” in honor of its previous director and the first president of the Max Planck Society. In the 1960s and 1970s the Institute’s research portfolio was extended from Physical Chemistry, Nuclear Physics and Mass Spectrometry to Cosmochemistry, Isotope Cosmology and Air Chemistry. Meteorites and moon dust samples were studied and the interplay of atmospheric gases, particles and meteorology were investigated. In the 1980s new departments for Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry were founded, in 2001 the Particle Chemistry department was established jointly with the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. In 2012 the Multiphase Chemistry Department and in 2015 the Climate Geochemistry Department was founded. Nowadays, the research focus of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry is on Earth System science, in particular on the chemical processes occurring in the atmosphere and their interactions with the biosphere and oceans. It also includes the influence of humans, as unprecedented urbanization and industrialization in the past centuries have changed the course of natural processes on our planet, in an epoch now known as the Anthropocene. Currently, the institute employs some 300 staff in five departments (Atmospheric Chemistry, at: http://www.mpic.de/en/research/atmospheric-chemistry.html, Biogeochemistry, at: http://www.mpic.de/en/research/biogeochemistry.html, Climate Geochemistry at: http://www.mpic.de/en/research/111561.html, Multiphase Chemistry, at: http://www.mpic.de/en/research/multiphase-chemistry. html and Particle Chemistry, at: http://www.mpic.de/en/research/particle-chemistry. html) and additional research groups. Scientists conduct laboratory experiments, collect samples and record measurement data during field campaigns utilizing airplanes, ships, and vehicles. The practical work is complemented with mathe- matical models that simulate chemical, physical, and biological processes from molecular to global scales. One of the major goals is to find out how air pollution, including reactive trace gases and aerosols, affect the atmosphere, biosphere, cli- mate, and public health. A description of current research topics is given in the Institute Reports http:// www.mpic.de/fileadmin/user_upload/images_Institut/Fachbeirat/MPIC_Scientific_ Report_2012-2014_screen_sm_rev.pdf. About the Author The research of Paul J. Crutzen has been mainly concerned with the role of chemistry in climate and biogeochemistry, and in particular the photochemistry of ozone in the stratosphere and troposphere. In 1970 he hypothesized that natural ozone production by the action of solar ultraviolet radiation on molecular oxygen (O2) is mainly balanced by destruction pro- cesses, involving NO and NO2 as catalysts. These catalysts in turn result from the oxidation of N2O, a product of microbiological nitrogen conversion in soils and waters. He and Prof. Harold Johnston of the Photo by Carsten Costard University of California, Berkeley, pointed out that NO emissions from large fleets of supersonic aircraft could cause substantial ozone losses in the stratosphere. In the years 1972–1974 Crutzen proposed that NO and NO2 could catalyse ozone production in the background troposphere by reactions occurring in the CO and CH4 oxidation chains. Additional photochemical reactions leading to ozone loss were likewise identified. These gross ozone production and destruction terms are each substantially larger than the downward flux of ozone from the stratosphere, which until then had been considered the main source of tropospheric ozone. In 1979–1980 Crutzen and co-workers drew attention to the great importance of the tropics in atmospheric chemistry. In particular, some measurement campaigns in Brazil clearly showed that biomass burning in the tropics was a major source of air pollutants, on a par with, or larger than, industrial pollution in the developed world. In 1982 Crutzen, together with Prof. John Birks of the University of Colorado, drew attention to the risk of darkness and strong cooling at the earth surface as a consequence of heavy smoke production by extensive fires in a nuclear war (‘nuclear winter’). This study and additional studies by R. Turco, B. Toon, T. Ackerman, J. Pollack and C. Sagan and by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), to which