Abstract
The year 2021 marked the bicentenary of the birth of James Croll (1821–1890), the self-educated son of a crofter-stonemason, whose life was characterised by a dizzying range of occupations and homes, poor health and financial concerns, and yet he became a pioneer of orbital dynamics and ice age climate change with an impressive record of publication. Drawing upon archival information and recently published observations, this paper explores selected aspects of Croll's biography, his scientific connections and controversies, and that area of his life relevant to Quaternary science. He was a 19th century polymath whose multifaceted contributions have been a catalyst for subsequent systems-based climate science on the grand scale, including the foundations for the seminal work of Milutin Milankovitch on the rhythms of Quaternary environmental change.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 400-419 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Journal of Quaternary Science |
Volume | 37 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 4 Apr 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Open access via Wiley agreementData Availability Statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new easily quantifiable data were created or analysed in this study. There are frequent references to either publicly available citation material or to archive documentary data which are accessible upon application to the repositories concerned. Relevant sources are indicated within the text.Keywords
- biography
- history of science
- James Croll
- Milutin Milankovitch
- Quarternary science