NOAA SCIENTIST INDUCTED INTO COLORADO WOMEN'S HALL OF FAME

March 10, 2006 — Susan Solomon, whose pioneering work in identifying the mechanism that produces the Antarctic ozone hole has brought her much recognition, achieved another milestone when she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame on Thursday. (Click NOAA image for larger view of Susan Solomon in her office in Boulder, Colo. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.”)

Solomon, a senior scientist at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, was among seven contemporary and two historical women inducted during a ceremony at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

"So many great women in the Hall of Fame have contributed so much to Colorado, and I am deeply honored to be on the list although I also feel extremely humbled when I see the other names," Solomon said.

Solomon was joined by songwriter/singer/political activist Judy Collins, businesswoman/woman's advocate Stephanie Allen, audiologist Marion Downs, psychologist and author Clarissa Estes, philanthropist Arlene Hirshfield, president and CEO of Girl Scouts Mile-High Council Jean Jones, and court reporter in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Vivian Spitz. The two historical inductees were Fannie Lorber, founder of the Denver Sheltering Home and Caroline Spencer, women's suffrage leader.

"Susan Solomon is an exemplary individual to be enshrined in such a place; she stands as a role model and a reminder to all young people of the possibilities in life," said Richard Spinrad, Ph.D., assistant administrator of NOAA Research. "We at NOAA are extremely proud of Susan and her dedication to science, and we are pleased that she and her work have been recognized with this honor."

Solomon was the leading scientist in identifying the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole, an unexpected geophysical phenomenon that began around the early 1980s. Solomon and her colleagues suggested that chemical reactions involving man-made chlorine interacting with icy clouds in the cold polar stratosphere could be responsible for the unprecedented losses of ozone during the Antarctic springtime.

She then led two U.S. scientific expeditions to Antarctica in 1986 and 1987 that succeeded in providing key observations that confirmed her theory.

Her work played an important role in the creation of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, a landmark international agreement designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer. The treaty was originally signed in 1987 and substantially amended in 1990 and 1992. The Montreal Protocol and its Amendments stipulated that the production and consumption of compounds that deplete ozone in the stratosphere—chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform—were to be phased out by 2000 (2005 for methyl chloroform).

Since 1981, Solomon has been an atmospheric scientist at the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, which, in October 2005, became part of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. Among her many awards is the naming of a glacier in Antarctica in her honor, the 2004 Blue Planet Prize and the 1999 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific award. She also has received many other honors and awards, including the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award; the Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor given by the American Meteorological Society; and the Montreal Protocol 10th Anniversary Award from the United Nations Environment Programme.

Solomon received her Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Academia Europaea and a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences.

The Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, established in 1985, is an all-volunteer-run not-for-profit organization dedicated to the recognition and preservation of the historical accomplishments of Colorado's outstanding women, both past and present.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.

Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory

Media Contact:
Jana Goldman, NOAA Research, (301) 713-2483 ext. 181