Ray Bradley

(University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts. U.S.A.)

 

I had heard of Liu Tungsheng long before I met him. As a young climatologist, completing my Ph.D. in Boulder, Colorado, there were only two famous Chinese paleoclimate scientists that I knew about—Chu Kochen (Zhu Kezhen) and Liu Tungsheng. Nowadays, of course, many more Chinese paleoclimatologists are well-known, because much of their work is available in English. But 30 years ago it was difficult to learn about paleoclimate research in China. Nevertheless, Liu’s work was well-known and highly respected. His volume on Loess in China was a classic, and demonstrated that there were remarkable terrestrial archives in the loess deposits of China, providing a window on climate variations going back millions of years. So, it was a great honor for me to meet him when I first visited China in 1984, to attend the Beijing International Symposium on Climate (co-sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics and the International Quaternary Association). This meeting opened a new world for me and many other western scientists who attended, and enabled us to establish long-lasting friendships with many Chinese colleagues.

Many years later I was fortunate to be invited to join the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program’s Project on Past Climate Changes (IGBP-PAGES) based in Bern, Switzerland. The goal of this organization is to promote and organize paleoclimate research by identifying key priorities that could bring scientists together and guide future investments by funding agencies. This sounds rather bureaucratic but in fact, being part of this group was a wonderful experience for me as I met some of the leading paleoclimatologists in the world—Hans Oeschger, Claude Lorius, Dominique Raynaud, Dick Peltier, Jean-Claude Duplessy, Jean Jouzel….and Liu Tungsheng. All of our meetings were of great interest because, although we got together to discuss organizational matters, in fact each person reported on the latest developments in their field so for me it was a great opportunity to hear about cutting-edge research being carried out on ice cores, marine sediments, modeling, loess etc.  And because the people involved were all world-class scientists, their vision of what should be done in future was also very profound. When I think back on those discussions, I recall very well Liu Tungsheng’s participation. He was often quiet and thoughtful, but when he spoke everybody stopped and listened. And for some reason, in a room full of the world’s best paleoclimatologists, everyone referred to him as “Professor Liu”! Nobody else was addressed as “Professor”, even though everybody present was one! But I suppose it was our way of recognizing his long and distinguished career. He always had important contributions to make and our discussions benefited from his insight and wisdom.  But perhaps more importantly, he was a very kind man, never forceful or disagreeable. We all enjoyed his company, and there is a lot to be said for that.

One thing that we tried to do in the PAGES organization was to hold meetings in different parts of the world so we could try and involve the different research communities in a truly global effort to reconstruct past climate variations. I have fond memories of two of those meetings which Professor Liu attended. One was in Australia and on a short fieldtrip there, we stopped at a place where there was a beautiful bird—a yellow-crested cockatoo—that was quite tame and would sit on your hand. I took a photograph of Professor Liu with this bird and later had a T-shirt made for him, with the photograph printed on it. He obviously liked this picture as he wore the shirt on another fieldtrip—this time in Argentina. The photographs below show him enjoying these trips, first joking with the cockatoo in Australia, and second wearing his T-shirt on the day we were shown the Quaternary fluvial and glaciofluvial sediments along the eastern flanks of the Andes.

It was a privilege for me to have known Professor Liu; I enjoyed his friendship and benefited from his wise counsel. He leaves a rich legacy of research on Chinese loess, with an outstanding group of scientists who are continuing the work he enjoyed so much. And for that we can be thankful.