Alan West Brewer

Alan West Brewer (1915 – 2007-11-21) was a Canadian-English physicist and climatologist. Born in Montreal, Canada and raised in Derby, England, he earned a scholarship to study physics at the University College of London. He received his M.Sc. there, and began to work for the Met Office in 1937. During World War II, he researched contrails for the Royal Air Force, making the discovery that the stratosphere is much drier than had been presumed. Later this observation led to the development of Brewer-Dobson circulation. Brewer worked at the Subdepartment of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, University of Oxford from 1948 until 1962, when he became a professor at University of Toronto. In 1977, Brewer retired from the University of Toronto, returning to England, in Devon, where he farmed until nearly 80 years old.cite web| last=Brewer | first=Rob | title=Alan W. Brewer (1915–2007) | url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbrwr/2084470975/ | accessdate=2008-07-20] cite web| title=Brewer-Dobson Workshop Newsletter 15 | url=http://www.aero.jussieu.fr/~sparc/News15/15_Norton.html | accessdate=2008-07-20] [cite web| title=TAO: Facility Description | url=http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/TAO/facility.html | accessdate=2008-07-20]

In late 1959, he and James Milford developed the Oxford-Kew ozone sonde.cite web| title=Brewer-Mast Ozone Sonde (BM) | publisher=Institut für Chemie und Dynamik der Geosphäre | url=http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg-2/josie/ozone_sondes/brewer_mast/ | date=2006-02-13 | accessdate=2007-09-14] [cite journal| last=Brewer | first=A. W. | coauthors=J. R. Milford | date=1960-07-19 | title=The Oxford-Kew ozone sonde | journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences | volume=256 | issue=1287 | pages=470–495] He also developed the Brewer ozone spectrophotometer with Dave Wardle which is currently the most accurate instrument for measuring ozone.cite magazine| title=The Brewer ozone spectrophotometer and the UV index | journal=EnviroZine | issue=75 | date=2007-09-14 | url=http://www.ec.gc.ca/EnviroZine/english/issues/75/feature2_e.cfm | accessdate=2008-07-20]

Brewer married Iris, another UCL physicist, in 1939. They had three children.

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