REID BRYSON IS an American atmospheric scientist, geologist, meteorologist, and emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At Wisconsin, he founded the Department of Meteorology, the Center for Climatic Research, and helped found the Institute for Environmental Studies, which he directed 1970–85. According to the British Institute of Geographers, Bryson is the most often quoted climatologist in the world. Throughout his long career, he has advanced general understanding of climate, linking it with human ecology. He has focused on anthropogenic climate changes (changes generated by human interventions) and has also dealt with paleoclimatology, which seeks to understand ancient weather patterns.

Bryson is perhaps most famous for his statement that global warming is not the result of human actions, which has sparked controversy even within his ...