Mario J. Molina
Mario J. Molina
Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquezis a Mexican chemist and one of the most prominent precursors to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. In 2004 he became professor at the University of California, San Diego and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth's ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases, becoming the first Mexican-born citizen to ever receive...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth19 March 1943
CountryMexico
In contrast to the troposphere, the stratosphere is extremely dry and practically cloudless - the concentration of water vapor is measured in parts per million and is, in fact, comparable to that of ozone.
I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope.
Laboratory experiments, field observations and atmospheric modeling calculations have now established that chemical reactions occurring on PSC particles play a central role in polar ozone depletion.
The first education to be a good chemist is to do well in high school science courses. Then, you go to college to really become a chemist. You want to take science and math. Those are the main things.
Keeping with our family tradition of sending their children abroad for a couple of years, and aware of my interest in chemistry, I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland when I was 11 years old, on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospective chemist to learn.
Much remains to be learned about stratospheric chemistry - and, in more general terms, about the physics and chemistry of the global atmosphere.
When I was in elementary school, I was very interested in science already. I must have been ten or eleven years old. I started experiments with chemistry sets at my home in Mexico. I was able to borrow a bathroom and convert it to a laboratory. My parents supported it. They were pleased. My friends just tolerated it.