temperature variations for the last thousand years." Climatic Research Unit In 1971 Lamb decided to base his pioneering research at a university, and he became the first Director of the Climatic Research Unit established in 1972 in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. In 1973 and 1975 he arranged for two international conferences which were hosted in Norwich. He was known as “the ice man” because of his view that global cooling would lead to a future glacial period within 10,000 years with some abrupt cooling phases occurring "within one to two thousand years". However he also acknowledged that global warming could have serious effects within a century. His warnings of damage to agriculture, ice caps melting, and cities being flooded caught widespread attention and helped to shape public opinion. He gained the unit sponsorship from seven major insurance companies, who wanted to make use of the research of the unit when making their own studies of the implications of climate change for insurance against storm and flood damage. He retired from the unit in 1978, and his contributions to the unit were recognised in 1981 when he was granted an honorary Doctorate of Science. Abrupt climate change and global warming Lamb's 1977 book Climatic History and the Future described studies of fossil pollen showing an abrupt change from a glacial era of pinewoods to oak trees, pointing to "great rapidity of climate change". He discussed research on the complex effects of human caused pollution, and suggested that "On balance, the effects of increased carbon dioxide on climate is almost certainly in the direction of warming but is probably much smaller than the estimates which have commonly been accepted." In the preface to his 1984 edition of the book, Lamb noted studies of the "carbon dioxide problem" and called for more investigation of past climate, particularly "evidence that some major climatic changes took place surprisingly quickly." He outlined recent research suggesting that the next glaciation would begin in 3,000 to 7,000 years, and wrote "It is to be noted here that there is no necessary contradiction between forecast expectations of (a) some renewed (or continuation of) slight cooling of world climate for some years to come, e.g. from volcanic or solar activity variations; (b) an abrupt warming due to the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, lasting some centuries until fossil fuels are exhausted and a