Climate scientist Wallace Smith Broecker passes away in New York

Climate scientist Wallace Smith Broecker, who popularised the term "global warming" has passed away in New York.

Eighty-seven-year-old Columbia University professor breathed his last at a New York City hospital on Monday.

Broecker brought "global warming" into common use with a 1975 paper that correctly predicted rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to pronounced warming.

Broecker was also first to recognize what he called the Ocean Conveyor Belt, a global system of ocean currents circulating water and nutrients. He joined Columbia's faculty in 1959 and was known in science circles as the "Grandfather of Climate Science". (AIR)

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