The leading glaciologist Claude Lorius whose expeditions helped prove that were responsible for global warming has passed on at the age of 91.
Lorius passed on Tuesday morning in the French region of Burgundy.
He loved adventure which set him on the path to identifying and predicting an impending catastrophe for the planet.
In 1965 he joined an expedition just after university to Antarctica where temperatures there are as low as -40c.
However the more polar expeditions he led to the continent the more he became fascinated with Antarctica’s mysteries.
His research showed that while carbon dioxide had varied slightly after the Industrial Revolution concentrations of the greenhouse gas had rocketed as temperatures rose.
In addition the French National Centre for Scientific Research said this left no room for doubt that global warming was due to man made pollution.
From then Claude Lorius become a campaigner and in 1988 he was inaugurated expert of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on climate change.
He was awarded the CNRS gold medal in 2002 along with his other colleague Jean Jouzel.
