Edward Lorenz, a professor, emeritus, in the department of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been named the first recipient of the Roger Revelle Medal, presented by the Washington, D.C.-based American Geophysical Union (AGU). Lorenz received the award at the fall meeting of AGU in San Francisco on December 9.
Named for oceanographer Roger Revelle, who died in July 1991, the award honors individuals who have contributed to understanding the processes involved in the Earth's atmosphere, including its dynamics, chemistry, and radiation.
Revelle--former director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., now a part of the University of California, San Diego--was best known as a co-founder of the theory of plate tectonics, which states that the ocean floor moves because of an upward flow of heat from the Earth's interior.
Honoree Lorenz's work focuses primarily on chaos theory as a...
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