Keeling, Charles David (1928–2005)

CHARLES DAVID KEELING was a pioneer of climate science and atmospheric monitoring. Through his work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Keeling constructed the most extensive record of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) ever produced. Keeling s careful charting of rising concentrations of CO2 in the Earths atmosphere served to confirm scientific theories about the impacts of industrialization on the global environment and provided the empirical cornerstone for subsequent analyses of climate change.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on April 20, 1928, Charles David Keeling studied chemistry at the University of Illinois (graduating in 1948), before obtaining his Ph.D. (also in chemistry) from Northwestern University in 1954. His move into atmospheric studies was confirmed in 1956, when the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recruited him to work ...