History of Geophysics Fellowship awarded

Inspired by an article in an issue of Eos from April 1970, Gabe Henderson discovered a legacy of correspondence from former AGU president Helmut Landsberg detailing his views in the early days of the climate science debate. Thanks to AGU donors and the creation of a new fellowship by AGU's History of Geophysics Committee, Henderson, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University, is conducting research on Landsberg's papers at the University of Maryland, College Park, continuing his study of the broad history of geophysics and the link between the past and future of climate science. In April 1970, Henderson says, AGU president Helmut Landsberg called for S. Fred Singer to lead a special committee on environmental quality to evaluate the geophysical aspects of environmental problems, dispassionately (H. E. Landsberg, Eos Trans. AGU , 51 , 243, doi:10.1029/EO051i004p00243). Because environmental problems were hardly given a second thought at that time, Landsberg's request could have faded from the consciousness of geoscientists and from the pages of history.