John Firor, scientist who rang global-warming alarm, dies at 80

John W. Firor, 80, whose clearly stated analysis of the impact of increasing carbon dioxide on the climate sounded an alarm about global warming, died Nov. 5 in Pullman. He had Alzheimer's disease.

Mr. Firor, who led the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., from 1968 to 1980, was skilled at translating scientific research into language the public could understand.

"The problem with global warming is not having a warmer Earth," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1992. "What we need to do is make sure we don't force a climate change that is too fast for natural systems to adapt to."

His 1990 book, "The Changing Atmosphere: A Global Challenge," was translated into nine languages. Although longtime New York Times science writer Malcolm Browne called it "about as agreeable as a dose of ipecac," he also said it was "persuasive because it is based more on evenhanded analysis than on advocacy."

Born in Athens, Ga., John William Firor interrupted college at Georgia Tech to enlist in the Army near the end of World War II. He served at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, work that persuaded him to study physics when his military service was over. He graduated from Georgia Tech, then received a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago in 1954.

In the late 1950s, He worked at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, where he said the policy manual was contained on a 3-inch-by-5-inch card: "1. Don't spend money we don't have, and 2. Don't work with high voltages if you are alone."

He moved in 1961 to Boulder to become director of the High Altitude Observatory, which soon became part of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was appointed director of the center in 1968 and executive director in 1974. After he stepped down in 1980, he ran the center's advanced-study program.

A 1988 editorial that Mr. Firor wrote in a scientific journal prompted environmentalists, several European governments and a few U.S. legislators to call for a 20 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by the year 2000, a Washington Post article reported in 1990.

"The sooner we get busy trying to slow down our emissions the better we are," he said. "It is going to take decades to get people organized to reduce emissions. To say we can wait a decade before we start may be a perfectly sound calculation, but it is not a good political calculation."

A 2002 book, "The Crowded Greenhouse: Population, Climate Change and Creating a Sustainable World," which he wrote with his second wife, Judith E. Jacobsen, spelled out some of the adverse impacts of a population that was growing too rapidly.

Mr. Firor had commercial licenses for flying single- and multi-engine aircraft, sailplanes and hot-air balloons. He flew a sailplane in a research project on the origin and behavior of Montana thunderstorms and hailstorms.

He was a past chairman of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund, now known as Environmental Defense. He also was a trustee of the World Resources Institute.

His wife of 29 years, Merle Jenkins Firor, died in 1979. His second wife died in 2004.

Survivors include four children from his first marriage, Daniel Firor of Seattle, Kay Firor of Cove, Ore., James Firor of Hotchkiss, Colo., and Susan Firor of Moscow, Idaho; a sister and a brother.