LEWISTON – A 1995 Nobel Prize-winner for his ozone-layer research will discuss his work in atmospheric chemistry and environmental advocacy at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at Bates College.

F. Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland’s talk, “Our Changing Atmosphere: (1) The Ozone Hole (2) Carbon Dioxide” will be given in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at 70 Campus Ave. The annual Edmund S. Muskie Environmental Lecture at Bates is open to the public at no cost.

A professor at the University of California, Irvine, Rowland shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen for their determination that some human-made gases in the atmosphere react to solar radiation by releasing chlorine and chlorine compounds that can destroy ozone. The Earth’s ozone layer protects life on the planet from certain harmful wavelengths of sunlight.

Rowland’s research has won the Tyler Prize, the Japan Prize in Environment and Energy, the American Chemical Society’s Peter Debye Award and the American Geophysical Union’s Roger Revelle Medal.

The annual Muskie Environmental Lecture honors 1936 Bates graduate Edmund S. Muskie, a former Maine governor, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state. During his 22 years in the Senate, Muskie sponsored pieces of landmark legislation to protect the environment, including the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.