Bob Henson
Published: April 16, 2020
Sir John Houghton, co-chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), explains a diagram of global temperature Monday, Jan. 22, 2001, at a news conference.
Sir John Houghton, an eminent British physicist and climate researcher who served as lead editor for the first three landmark reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), died Wednesday at the age of 88.
The death was related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, granddaughter Hannah Malcolm said on Twitter.
A native of Wales, Houghton was prominent in meteorology and atmospheric science long before his work on human-caused climate change began. He was deputy director of the United Kingdom’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory from 1979 to 1983 and director general of the UK Meteorological Office from 1983 to 1991.
John Houghton was born to strict Baptist parents in Dyserth North Wales and grew up in Rhyl, where his love for the sea and mountains began. There's a sculpture of him in Rhyl alongside Don Spendlove and Mike Peters, and my sister once got him to take a picture with it:
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In 1990, Houghton founded what is now known as the Met Office's Hadley Center for Climate Science and Services, a world leader in climate research.
Houghton served as lead editor on the IPCC's First Assessment Report (1990) and chaired the panel’s Working Group I, which focuses on assessing the available scientific information. Sponsored by the United Nations, the first IPCC assessment was the first comprehensive global report on the effects of human-produced greenhouse gases on Earth’s recent and future climate.
The first IPCC assessment also laid the groundwork for the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – the global agreement that has guided international policy on climate change ever since.
Houghton continued as lead editor and co-chair for the IPCC Working Group I’s second and third assessment reports in 1996 and 2001, respectively.
In 2007, on behalf of the panel, Houghton accepted the Nobel Peace Prize that was shared by the IPCC and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
"I've been privileged to be closely involved in the wonderful revolution of the past 50 years in atmospheric and earth science," Houghton told Church Times in 2013. "It's been like surfing – if you get on the wave at the right time, you come right into the shore.
"All this began to be possible after Sputnik in 1957, and the use of powerful computers to model the atmosphere and climate."
Houghton is the author of "Global Warming: The Complete Briefing," a lay-friendly summary of climate change first published in 1994 and now in its fifth edition. He also wrote a leading textbook on atmospheric physics.
John Houghton was my PhD supervisor’s supervisor, and it was always apparent to me how much he influenced his students. Through I never met him, he will be greatly missed by many.
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Houghton’s book "In the Eye of the Storm: The Autobiography of Sir John Houghton" was published in 2013.
A devout Christian, Houghton was outspoken about the nature of science and religion and the potential for them to coexist. He was among the founders of the International Society for Science and Religion, which includes members from a variety of faiths, as well as atheists.
"Putting my science and faith alongside each other has always been important to me, because I believe they belong together," he told Church Times.
Houghton's granddaughter Malcolm recalled on Twitter, "When I was younger, my consistent memory of him was warnings over the devastation waiting us if we didn't act on climate change. And I remember thinking how glad I was that scientists like him were in charge. But of course it isn't the scientists in charge.
"He faced a lifetime of lobbyists and corporations trying to undermine his work, question his motives and distract from evidence. But my other consistent memory will be his deep faith that he was doing work in service of the God he loved, and in service of the world he loved."
Really sad to hear of the death of John Houghton, climate change hero and former Chair of the IPCC - amongst many other things. Let's make his legacy a flattening of the global greenhouse emissions curve - and then a steep decline. #ClimateCrisis #JohnHoughton #FlatteningTheCurve twitter.com/hannahmmalcolm…
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The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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