- Born
- Died
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Walter Orr Roberts was born on August 20, 1915 in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA. He is known for Harnessing the Sun (1981), Our Mr. Sun (1956) and Survival of Spaceship Earth (1972). He was married to Janet Smock. He died on March 12, 1990 in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
- SpouseJanet Smock(June 8, 1940 - ?) (4 children)
- Dr. Roberts established the prototype of the world's largest coronagraph, or solar telescope, at University of Colorado's High Altitude Observatory in 1940. He also directed the program on food, climate, and the world's future for the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies from 1974 to 1981.
- An astronomer and physicist with degrees from Amherst College and Harvard University, he founded and was appointed director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in June 1960. Dr. Roberts was a pioneer in the development of climatology and was concerned with the impact of technology on the climate, and of the climate on the progress of life on Earth.
- Noted for his significant studies of the sun's activity.
- With Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan, and Donald Kennedy, Dr. Roberts wrote _The Cold and the Dark_ (1984), about nuclear winter. Also, with former astronaut Russell Schweickart, he initiated Greenhouse/Glasnost, a computer dialogue on global warming between American and Soviet scientists, in 1988.
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