Mario molina education
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Mario J. Molina, PH.D.
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Atmospheric Chemist
(1943 – 2020)
California Connection
- Earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley; worked at University of California, Irvine, University of California, San Diego and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Achievements
Biography current as of induction in 2017
Mario J. Molina was one of the world’s top scientists in the field of atmospheric chemistry. In 1974, he and Frank Sherwood Rowland co-authored an article correctly predicting that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) would cause the breakdown of the ozone layer. Their work earned them the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work led to a worldwide ban on CFCs, the first international treaty to effectively address a human-caused global environmental threat.
Molina also has focused on the chemistry of pollution in the lower atmosphere, collaborating with other experts to confront the problem of air quality in urban areas. Recently he has focused primarily on science-policy issues related to climate change, prom
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Mario Molina (1943–2020) was the first to realize that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could destroy ozone. In the two decades following his discovery, he and his mentor became voices alerting the world to the danger of CFCs and ozone depletion. Their warnings often fell on deaf ears. Once confirmed, however, their findings earned them a Nobel Prize.
In 1973 Molina, a postdoctoral researcher working in the laboratory of F. Sherwood Rowland at the University of California, Irvine, made an unsettling discovery. He had been investigating a class of compounds called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. CFCs were used as refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and in making plastic foams. Molina wondered what happened to them once they were released into the atmosphere.
How CFCs Destroy Ozone
Molina’s study was a hypothetical one based on computer modeling, but his results suggested that CFCs could, in theory, destroy an oxygen compound called ozone under the conditions that exist in the upper atmosphere. Far above the earth’s surface, in the stratosphere, a thin layer of ozone floats, protecting us from
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Mario Molina
Mario Molina, a distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of California San Diego who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his role in elucidating the threat of chlorofluorocarbon gases to the Earth’s ozone layer, died at his home in Mexico City Oct. 7, 2020. He was 77 years old.
“Mario Molina was instrumental in developing UC San Diego’s stellar reputation as a world leader in climate research and global environmental science,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “Not unlike a star around which planets circled, he attracted a group of brilliant scientists to UC San Diego to undergo groundbreaking work. A great deal of this university’s prestige and distinction was cultivated through his work and the work of those he brought to UC San Diego.”
Molina will be remembered for dedicating his life to research and working in favor of protecting the environment. He was a pioneer and one of the main scientists in the world dedicated to atmospheric chemistry. He was co-author, with F. Sherwood Rowland
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