Rhyl’s Sir John Houghton dies from suspected COVID-19
Written by admin on April 18, 2020
The 88 year old physicist who was born in Dyserth and grew up in Rhyl has has died from what is suspected to be COVID-19 on April 16th 2020.
Sir John Houghton was knighted in 1991 will be recognised for his work with global climate change. In 2007 he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and received many other awards for his work, along with release many publications.
In a Twitter post by his granddaughter Hannah Malcolm, she writes of some of her fondest memories about her Grandfather, one being the dramatic weather events in 1987 and a BBC weather presenter.
“He was Director General of the UK Meterological Office from 1983, and in 1987 he and Michael Fish were blamed for a failure to predict the big storm that hit the south of England. Readers of The Sun voted that he and Michael Fish should be sacked, which he remembered fondly.”
Hannah’s Twitter posts goes on to read that Sir Johnn returned to Wales during his final years to live by the sea but sadly began to lose his fond memories and faculties to dementia.
Sir John Houghton will also be remembered to residents in Rhyl after a metal sculptur of him was erected alongside musician Mike Peters and Footballer Don Spendlove at the new Rhyl Habour in 2013.
You can read the full Twitter post from Sir John Houghton’s granddaughter below.
My granddad died yesterday from COVID-19. He was an atmospheric physicist and committed Christian who devoted his career to climate justice, including chairing the IPCC and changing the mind of a major U.S. evangelical lobbyist. I want to tell you a bit about his life's work.
— Hannah Malcolm (@hannahmmalcolm) April 16, 2020
