The 1999 Alessandro Dandini Medal of Science has been awarded to Dr. Kendrick Taylor, a Desert Research Institute scientist whose work has prompted a fundamental rethinking of the nature and pace of the process of global climate change. The Dandini Medal is the institute's highest annual recognition for scientific accomplishment by a member of its research faculty.
DRI President Stephen G. Wells said Dr. Taylor received the minted medallion and $1,000 prize from Countess Angela Dandini, the award's sponsor and widow of the medal's namesake, in formal ceremonies at DRI on December 7. Taylor is a geophysicist and research professor in DRI's Division of Hydrologic Sciences, and has been with the institute since 1983.
Taylor startled the scientific world a decade ago with his conclusions from a study of 200,000 years of climate change recorded in a 1.8-mile deep ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet. His findings indicated that climate conditions could swing from glacial-those causing ice ages-to interglacial, such as we're experiencing now, in less than a decade. The findings shattered commonly held assumptions of steady, incremental changes in climate in a process requiring thousands of years.
As a result of that work, said Wells, the National Science Foundation selected Taylor in 1996 to be chief scientist for the West Antarctic Ice Shelf Core project. This major, multi-year project involves dozens of scientific organizations and hundreds of scientists and technicians on a difficult, complex ice core drilling project on the southern continent. The project is widely recognized as a crucial step in defining the variability of climate change.
Countess Dandini established the Dandini Medal award in 1992 following the death of her husband, a scientist, industrialist, and inventor who served as special assistant to DRI's president in the 1970s. In that capacity, Count Dandini succeeded in obtaining the 470-acre site in north Reno now housing DRI and Truckee Meadows Community College. The site was subsequently named Dandini Research Park in recognition of his contributions.