Legacy

Scripps Institution of Oceanography was founded in 1903 through the efforts of University of California Berkeley professor William Ritter and a small group of San Diego community leaders, including newspaper magnate E. W. Scripps and his half sister Ellen Browning Scripps. The remote biological outpost grew in size and stature as it expanded its scope from the local coastline into the vast Pacific Ocean and beyond.

Scripps faculty pioneered many fields of marine studies and wrote the first American oceanography textbook. They initiated an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to studying the oceans, air, land, and life as unified systems. The entire planet became their laboratory and classroom.

In the 1960s, Scripps director Roger Revelle joined with community leaders to create University of California San Diego, now one of the nation s foremost academic and research universities.

Scripps scientists were the first to discover rising levels of carbon dioxide. They have revolutionized understanding of fundamental earth processes including plate tectonics and earthquakes, marine ecology, ocean waves and currents, and climate cycles. They have advanced technologies for collecting data and samples, devised novel strategies for making measurements and observations, and created sophisticated systems and methods for data handling and analysis.