William Aaron Nierenberg (February 13, 1919 – September 10, 2000) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

who worked on the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

and was director of the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for oceanography, ocean and Earth science research ...

from 1965 through 1986. He was a co-founder of the

George C. Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 198 ...

in 1984.

Background

Nierenberg was born on February 13, 1919, at 213 E. 13th Street, on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the son of very poor Jewish immigrants from

Austro-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

.Oral History interview transcript with William Nierenberg

American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...

, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, 6 February 1986 He went to

Townsend Harris High School Townsend Harris High School at Queens College (THHS) is a public magnet high school for the humanities in the borough of Queens in New York City. Students and alumni often refer to themselves as "Harrisites." Townsend Harris consistently ranks a ...

and then the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

(CCNY), where he won a scholarship to spend his junior year abroad in France at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. In 1939, he became the first recipient of a

William Lowell Putnam William Lowell Putnam II (November 22, 1861 – June 1923) (more commonly known as William Putnam, Sr.) was an American lawyer and banker. Putnam was the son of George and Harriet (Lowell) Putnam. He graduated from Harvard in 1882, and proc ...

fellowship from the City College. Also in 1939, he participated in research at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he took a course in statistical mechanics from his future mentor,

I. I. Rabi Isidor Isaac Rabi (; born Israel Isaac Rabi, July 29, 1898 – January 11, 1988) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance ima ...

. He went on to graduate work at Columbia, but from 1941 spent the war years seconded to the

, working on

isotope separation Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research (e.g. in chemistry where atoms of "marker" n ...

, before returning to Columbia to complete his PhD.

Career

In 1948 Nierenberg took up his first academic staff position, as Assistant Professor of Physics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. From 1950 to 1965 he was Associate and then Professor of Physics at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he had a very large and productive low energy

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

laboratory, graduating 40 PhD’s during this time and publishing about 100 papers. He was responsible for the determination of more nuclear moments than any other single individual. This work was cited when he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1971. During this period, in 1953, Nierenberg took a one-year leave to serve as the director of the

Hudson Laboratories, working on naval warfare problems. Later, he oversaw the design and construction of the “new” physics building at Berkeley. Much later (1960–1962) he took leave once again as Assistant Secretary General of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

(NATO) in charge of scientific affairs, where he oversaw many international studies on physics and advanced defense technologies. In 1965 Nierenberg was asked to be director of the

(SIO). Nierenberg was director of SIO for 21 years, the longest serving director to date. During his tenure, five modern research vessels joined the Scripps fleet and the institution’s budget increased fivefold. He oversaw the

Deep Sea Drilling Project The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) was an ocean drilling project operated from 1968 to 1983. The program was a success, as evidenced by the data and publications that have resulted from it. The data are now hosted by Texas A&M University, alt ...

(1966–1986), which produced scientific advances such as the discovery of deep-sea hydrocarbons, the finding that the Mediterranean Sea had once been a closed basin and even a dry seabed, and confirmation that present ocean basins are young. The project became the first multi-institutional, international collaboration in science and a model for later projects. Nierenberg gained national recognition for his contributions to science. He was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1971 and to the governing Council of the Academy in 1979. He was also elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1965, the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1975, and the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in 1983. In 1981, Nierenberg became a founding member of the

World Cultural Council The World Cultural Council is an international organization whose goals are to promote cultural values, goodwill and philanthropy among individuals. The organization founded in 1981 and based in Mexico, has held a yearly award ceremony since 198 ...

. In 1987 he was awarded the Delmer S. Fahrney Medal from the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

for outstanding leadership in science.

Advisory boards

Nierenberg served on a large number of panels and advisory committees, primarily after he returned from NATO. In 1971 he was appointed chairman of the National Academy of Sciences National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere and served on this committee until 1977. He served on various panels of the

President's Science Advisory Committee The President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) was created on November 21, 1957, by President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a direct response to the Soviet launching of the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites. PSAC was an upgrade ...

. He was a member of the

National Science Board The National Science Board (NSB) of the United States establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the framework of applicable national policies set forth by the President and the Congress. The NSB also serves as an ind ...

from 1972 to 1978 and was appointed for another term from November 1982 to May 1988. Nierenberg was a consultant to the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

, and served on many military-related panels. In 1976 he was appointed one of two senior consultants to the newly formed

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

(OSTP). He was a member of the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...

’s (NASA) Advisory Council from 1978 to 1982 and served as its first chairman. He was Chairman of the OSTP Acid Rain Peer Review Panel, whose report "Acid Rain" was published in 1984. The report encouraged the administration to curb

acid rain Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...

emissions.

Climate

Nierenberg took a strong interest in the problem of

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. Under his predecessor at Scripps,

Roger Revelle Roger Randall Dougan Revelle (March 7, 1909 – July 15, 1991) was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego and was among the early scientists to study anthropogenic global ...

, Scripps had begun a program of monitoring and other

greenhouse gases A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...

. Nierenberg supported this work and intervened personally when research funds for the program were threatened. In October 1980, during the

Carter presidency Jimmy Carter's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 39th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Jimmy Carter, his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A History of the Democr ...

, an Act of Congress was passed requesting the National Academy of Science to review what was known about climate change. Nierenberg was appointed by the Academy to chair the committee to produce this report. The committee was made up of prominent physical scientists and two economists,

William Nordhaus William Dawbney Nordhaus (born May 31, 1941) is an American economist, a Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, best known for his work in economic modeling and climate change, and one of the 2 recipients of the 2018 Nobel Memoria ...

of Yale and

Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College ...

of Harvard. Schelling and many of the scientists had served on committees for two previous reports for the Carter administration, which had highlighted global warming as a potentially major problem, and Nordhaus was developing a new model for growth in emissions, the first which did not assume linear extrapolations. The scientific facts of the resulting ''Changing Climate'' report, which was released in October 1983, were largely in line with the previous reports. Its key points were: * The most probable date of "doubling" (to 600 ppm) was 2065 (page 21) * Global warming due to doubling is likely to be between 1-5-4.5 °C, as suggested by the Charney report. Careful review of dissenting inferences suggesting negligible -induced climate change shows these to be based on misleading analysis (page 28) * Warming at equilibrium would be 2-3 times as great over the polar regions as over the tropics; and probably greater over the arctic (page 30) * Sea level might rise 70 cm over a century from thermal expansion, and melting of alpine glaciers. There was great uncertainty of the fate of the

West Antarctic Ice Sheet The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica on the side of the Transantarctic Mountains that lies in the Western Hemisphere. The WAIS is classified as ...

; disintegration could lead to sea-level rise of 5 to 6m over several hundred years (page 42) The report also contained policy recommendations: * is a cause for concern but not panic; a program of action without a program for learning would be costly and ineffective (page 61) * A careful, well-designed program of monitoring and analysis is needed to detect the signal on climate (page 76) The policy recommendations have proved controversial, and it decelerated calls for quick action on climate change in the media and Washington. Historians

Naomi Oreskes Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...

, Erik M. Conway, and Matthew Shindell have argued that Nierenberg's report marked the genesis of climate change debates that would ensue over the subsequent decades. Reagan administration science advisor George A. Keyworth II cited the report in arguing against “unwarranted and unnecessarily alarmist” conclusions of the Environmental Protection Agency, and

Exxon ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

similarly cited the report in reversing previous commitments to renewable energy research. Oreskes and Conway contend that the chapters written by the economists differ from those written by the scientists, that the policy recommendations reflect mainly the views of the economists, and that Nierenberg, the committee chairman, personally rejected an emerging consensus view on global warming among climate scientists, and "in doing so arguably launched the climate change debate, transforming the issue from one of scientific concern to one of political controversy." In a 2010 paper, Nierenberg's son Nicolas disputes each of these points, arguing that the scientific conclusions of the report reflected the current consensus and pointing out that other climate reports from the time also stopped short of recommending near-term energy-policy changes.Nierenberg (2010) p. 345

Marshall Institute

Nierenberg subsequently became a co-founder of the

, and a critic of some of the scientific conclusions of various research papers.

Legacy

A building on the campus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is named for him and the

Nierenberg Prize The Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest is given annually by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It was created through a gift of the family to honor the memory of William Nierenberg. The prize includes a bronze medal and $25,0 ...

for Science in the Public Interest has been started. Some recipients have been

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...

Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...

Jane Lubchenco Jane Lubchenco (born December 4, 1947) is an American environmental scientist and marine ecologist who teaches and conducts research at Oregon State University. Her research interests include interactions between the environment and human well-be ...

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best know ...

Craig Venter John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. ...

Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is rep ...

James E. Hansen James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the The Earth Institute, Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research ...

and

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

Notes

References

* (Th
full text
is also available at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

.) * *

External links

Obituary
''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'', August 23, 2001
New York Times Obituary

Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee
October 1983 {{DEFAULTSORT:Nierenberg, William American nuclear physicists Putnam Fellows City College of New York alumni Columbia University alumni Scripps Institution of Oceanography faculty 1919 births 2000 deaths American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Jewish American physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Manhattan Project people Founding members of the World Cultural Council Townsend Harris High School alumni Columbia University faculty University of Michigan faculty Scientists from New York (state) George C. Marshall Institute Members of JASON (advisory group) 20th-century American Jews Members of the American Philosophical Society