As they labored, the world awoke to climate change
See how the careers of Ohio State paleoclimatologists Ellen Mosley-Thompson and Lonnie Thompson have grown in tandem with humans’ understanding of climate change.
1971
Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson come to Ohio State and work on master’s degrees and PhDs over the next nine years.
1972
For the first time, ice cores show big climate shifts over the preceding 1,000 years. Droughts hit countries across Africa as well as Ukraine and India.
1977
Scientists begin to realize global warming could be a problem for the planet.
1979
Lonnie attempts to drill ice from a tropical glacier for the first time, but fails. He succeeds four years later.
1982
Ellen embarks on her first expedition and drills ice cores in Antarctica.
1986
Ellen becomes the first woman to lead a remote field expedition in Antarctica.
1988
Public awareness of global warming grows with more droughts and record heat. The UN establishes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to better understand human-induced climate change. Its first report two years later shows Earth’s climate has been and likely will continue warming.
1992
Lonnie testifies before a U.S. Senate committee on the effects of climate change, the first time he speaks publicly about what he is seeing at the glaciers.
1996
Lonnie leads a team to Tibet, drilling cores at 23,260 feet, the highest elevation to date.
1999
Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” data show current warming is unprecedented. As the decade closes, Ellen has led seven expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica, and Lonnie has led 19 across the tropics.
2000
An IPCC report effectively ends debate about climate change among all but a few scientists.
2003
The collapse of Antarctica’s largest ice shelf allowed glacier ice to slide into the ocean faster, contributing to a rise in the sea level.
2005
Lonnie is elected to the National Academy of Sciences; the Kyoto Treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, signed by major industrial nations but not by the U.S., takes effect. Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans.
2006
The Thompsons serve as advisors on “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary about climate change by former Vice President Al Gore and filmmaker Davis Guggenheim. The next year, President George W. Bush awards Lonnie the U.S. Medal of Science.
2009
Ellen is elected to the National Academy of Sciences and named director of Ohio State’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center.
2012
Lonnie has a heart transplant at Ohio State’s Ross Hospital.
2013
Lonnie leads a team to an ice cap at 21,400 feet in Tibet. He leads several expeditions in the years that follow.
2019
Lonnie leads a team to Huascarán in Peru, collecting ice cores at up to 22,200 feet.
2021
Having warned three years earlier that greenhouse gas emissions must be in sharp decline worldwide by 2030 to avoid disastrous global warming, the IPCC says the global temperature will warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, causing irreversible harm to most inhabited areas.
