DURHAM – The University of New Hampshire College of Engineering and Physical Sciences will host Nobel-prize winning atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland in October as the 2003 Harold A. Iddles lecturer.

Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for being among the first to warn that pollutants called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were eating a hole in the earth’s stratospheric ozone layer, which protects against harmful ultraviolet radiation. Subsequent research on CFC’s led to several countries banning their use in the 1970s and, in 1987, to the Montreal Protocol, the international accord to sharply reduce CFC emissions.

Currently the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, Rowland is now investigating the effects of hydrocarbon and halocarbon composition of the atmosphere, with particular emphasis on the greenhouse effect. His lectures will cover both past and present research.

Established in 1961 after the retirement of longtime Department of Chemistry Chairman Harold A. Iddles, the annual lecture series includes two presentations. Rowland will give the first, a general interest lecture titled “Stratospheric Ozone Depletion, Global Warming and Climate Change” on Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 4:10 in Iddles Auditorium, room L101. The second presentation, a more technical presentation titled “Some Regional Hydrocarbon Chemistry,” will be on Oct. 16, at 11:10 in Iddles L103. Both are free of charge and open to the public.

###