Hugh (as he was known to me) was my first boyfriend. I met him in 1960 when he was an apprentice at the Saunders-Roe Training School in East Cowes, where I lived. My parents liked Hugh and I remember my Dad giving him a glass of Teacher's whisky. Hugh smoked Black Sobranie in his pipe and drove a Riley. He seemed very sophisticated to me. I remember him fondly as a very kind and thoughtful person. Later in life I contacted him and we exchanged emails, reflecting on our lives since the 60's.

Stephen’s name was well-known to me years ago in connection with wave-energy and his wonderful and super-efficient ‘ducks’. But much more recently, a developing interest on my part in the technology of Marine Cloud Brightening and its huge potential, led me very naturally to his door. While Stephen was always fair and modest in his acknowledgement of major early contributors to the field like Sean Twomey and John Latham, it strikes me now that it is Stephen himself who is the overarching architect and champion of this technology. And, incidentally, I truly believe that this technology could be the key to saving our planet! I have been fortunate enough and privileged enough to have had ongoing communication with Stephen about many aspects of this technology since the summer of last year. While I was a mere layman and novice to the field, he was greatly generous with his time as I sought to grapple with the most important concepts. And I got the chance to meet him in person too, at his home. My sense of him was that here was a man on the one hand both kindly and down-to-earth, on the other hand, quite clearly nothing less than a great and unique visionary. Alf Thomé 17th April 2024

Originally with Professor John Lathom (Salford University). Professor Salter made a compelling case for 'Marine Cloud Brightening', having worked out the fine scientific detail of this Geoengineering technique. It may yet be fully endorsed, and allow the possibility to save Mankind. This could be his fitting legacy.

I did not know Steven's connection with Behaviourism until his funeral but it now makes sense of an early experience I had with Steve. As a novice machinist I made the cardinal mistake of leaving the chuck key in the lathe. As Steven explained later this was potentially dangerous if not lethal. Steven snuck the offending key out and gently asked me to hold out my hand and then with the speed of a cobra wacked me full force on my palm with the key. Steven obviously knew that behavourism was 100% effective. I have never left a chuck key in a lathe since and if I see a forlorn chuck key I think of Steven and quietly remove it. He was an amazing person; a unique mixture of academic, a man of big and bold ideas, a rocket scientist, a talented machinist who was happy getting his hands dirty, a man who had a nose for interesting ideas and a gifted leader. I’ve read a few obituaries for Steven and they all mention the failure of the ‘Salter Duck’ without telling the rest of the story: out of the ashes of that project Steven laid the foundations for new industries and new technologies well in the future. The wave tank he designed with Glenn Keller is the world standard for wave research and has a become a significant business in itself. He was instrumental in taking Robert Clerk’s ideas about hydraulics, adding his own ideas and creating a new type of hydraulic machine that is revolutionizing what was a stagnant 19th century technology. His last wish to give his estate to create the Lothian School of Technology wasis typical of Steven: a problem solver to the end whose influence will continue with the legion of passionate and practical teams of engineers that he nurtured over his lifetime. We are all diminished by Steven’s departure.

When Stephen sent an offer letter to me, he included a picture of a ship sized rubber duck with two workmen standing beside it talking. "Thanks to xyz's engineering services, the design was not that expensive, but you should have seen the bill for the rubber". How could you NOT work for such a guy ?

Thoughts for Stephen and Margaret I still remember Stephen held a box of cake, stood in front of my door and said “Congratulations to move in and my name is Stephen. I am your downstairs neighbour. “. Our hearts were melted by the warmth of welcoming from Stephen when we just moved in. Since then, Stephen and Margaret became our dearest neighbours and friends, being the most inspiring people we have ever met. When our garden pipe burst during a winter, Stephen helped us to locate the troubled point and helped us to turn off the tap which was rusted. Every Christmas talk we had with Stephen and Margaret are still so fresh in our minds. Stephen inspired Wenbo with robots and told us the AI research he did. Margaret gave us the knowledge of Children minds and reminded us to get Wenbo to learn Chinese before 13 years old. Margaret told us what Scotland looked like in the 2nd world war and her inspiring life stories. Stephen told us that giving batteries to the elderly as Christmas gift is Scottish tradition(hopefully this is not a joke as we did follow his advice and gave them the batteries as Christmas gifts). Stephen is such a great person who genuinely care about others, care about our planet, who fearlessly stood up to fight against the political decisions which are not sound and not good for the community. One year when UK suffered severe flooding in Yorkshire area, Stephen told us he was designing a new pump to help people to quickly pump out the water from their houses. The last Christmas gift we had from him is his invention paper of whitening clouds for fighting the global warming crisis. Stephen and Margaret are genuinely interested in Acupuncture. With Stephen’s genius engineering mind, they have successfully detected the electromagnetic of pain points of Acupuncture and showed us their deep knowledge of it. They studied and practiced the technique to improve their own health and passed on their knowledge to others to improve their health. Margaret enjoyed being an artist and did digital painting in her later life. She had a lot ideas and creativity was part of her heart just like Stephen. Stephen loved her wife so much that giving away the new build studio which was planned as his new office to Margaret so that she can do her painting. He particularly designed one of the wall with magnets that Margaret could easily hung her works. Not only Margaret showed me her wonderful paintings, Stephen also proudly showed me his engineering drawing as a piece of art as well, which in deed the beautiful pattern laid down the paper. They demonstrated us how to be a loving person with so many beautiful human being natures. Both Stephen and Margaret will be deeply missed by us.

The first thing I ever heard from Stephen was "Is this a lot of rubbish?" in relation to a proposal that he was skeptical about... That was a good 20 years ago I think. And the last thing back a few months ago was... a commentary in relation to one of his many designs, this one to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. His dry and sometimes withering humour was a cover for his generous, kind heart. That disposition and his fine mind will be missed and also remembered fondly by many.

A very sad day. The World has lost a great man, a great intellect and a great visionary. I think Stephen could have single-handedly solved most of the World’s problems. I wish our current World leaders had 1/100th of the integrity, humanity, intellect and vision of Stephen. If that was the case, the World would be in a much better place. Just some thoughts from my own personal interaction with Stephen. Stephen was always so generous with his time. I remember having email conversations with him about things like ocean plastic removal and Flettner rotors for ship propulsion. When I say email conversations, it was more Stephen enlightening me. On another occasion, I was working with Alfred Cotten during his PhD studies (I hope Alfred doesn’t mind me mentioning him). Anyway, Alfred did some very nice numerical hydrodynamic modelling of a spine of Salter Ducks. Stephen really liked this work and I remember being so happy for Alfred. You know you have made it when Stephen praises your work! Thank you Stephen for everything!

Thank you for creating and advancing engineering solutions that were far ahead of their time and will continue to shape the world long into the future. Thank you for being an inspiration in both design and character, staying true to what you believed was right.

Stephen was a profound influence on my life. In five minutes with him, I gained more knowledge than I did in five years of university. I genuinely believe that without his guidance, I might not have graduated from university at all. He transformed my life, as he did for countless others.

Stephen Salter was an engineering pioneer, his achievements very much in keeping with previous famous engineers who studied at or worked in Engineering at the University of Edinburgh (notably Robert Stephenson, son of the ‘Father of the Railways’). Stephen was the ‘Father of Marine Renewable Energy Technology’, and world renowned for the ‘Salter Duck’ wave energy converter. Over his long career, he contributed to the first hovercraft, a two-stage rocket called Black Knight, Freddy the robot (ca 1970, which was the first to achieve eye to hand coordination), multidirectional wave generation machines, the Salter Sink for draining energy from extreme storms, the touch screen, water bag blast attenuation systems, digital displacement hydraulics (Artemis Intelligent Power, which won the MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015), and many other inventions. He often worked on the grand scale, examples being his concept of an autonomous vessel spraying seawater to brighten clouds and reduce climate warming, and his so-called ‘floodsucker’ designed for draining the Somerset levels. He suggested scraping the seabed off the coast of North Africa to allow seawater to flow under the Sahara Desert and thus help reduce mean sea level. Stephen was a disrupter of convention, a formidable intellect, and a fountain of ideas. He was expert in Socratic argument and occasionally railed against the ‘ships of fools’ which held back invention. Over the past decade, Angus Creech, Ruiwen Zhao, Ye Li, Venki Venugopal, Taka Nishino and I worked with Stephen on a new form of tidal turbine which Stephen had invented. Stephen was a great inspiration to us all. A great man, a gentleman, and a genius as an inventor. He was ethical, kind, and generous. He will be hugely missed.

Stephen kindly provided a talk to the Royal Meteorological Society Scottish Centre in December 2020. This was in the midst of the Covid pandemic so was delivered as a virtual lecture, but Stephen still delivered a highly entertaining and thought-provoking talk to an engaged audience. Stephen encouraged debate and discussion around climate change and meteorology which is at the heart of the Society's aims.

Note of gratitude to Stephen Salter: “Dear Stephen, I wish to thank you and express my deep gratitude for who you are, what you have and will continue to be contributing to the world trough self and through others. Your vision, creativity, expertise, dedication, resilience, powered by passion, joy and humor is so exceptional and inspiring to everybody you touch in any way with your enormous contributions. Your life work has created a wave of impact with all the qualities this wave carries, and as this wave hits others, these will be excited and transformed to both, reflect your wave of impact and creativity and scatter it further and also to actively respond while adding their own qualities and radiate these out as further contributions. This wave system will travel far and will not decay as others will add their energy, that you have excited, to the wave of your legacy. A very personal thank you is for a statement and piece of wisdom you shared years ago and that stayed with me since then and I have shared further may times. “Ideas are like babies. You have to play with them and let them grow!” In deep and heartfelt gratitude. Jochem"

Stephen Salter, a remarkable pioneer and leader in solar geoengineering, passed away peacefully in his sleep at age 85 on February 23. As Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh, he had a long history of provocative and innovative research, first in wave energy, designing the Salter Duck, and then in Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB). Stephen worked closely with John Latham and many other scientists to develop the MCB concept of submicron monodisperse sea salt generation, as proposed in their 2012 article published by the Royal Society. This article used general circulation model computations to argue that cooling from MCB could balance the heating from a doubling of CO2 while also delivering targeted local cooling. Stephen was in excellent health until late last year, actively engaging in discussions about how to take forward his designs to test MCB. In 2023 he purchased a 3000 m2 engineering workshop in Loanhead to establish the Lothian School of Technology, where a number of his former engineering students are developing innovative technologies. The Lothian School will be used to research Stephen’s proposal for a spray tunnel to test wafer nozzle technology for the generation of submicron MCB salt spray, potentially in collaboration with the Cambridge University Centre for Climate Repair. Stephen established Ocean Cooling Technology Ltd as the owner of the Lothian School to take forward his vision. He hoped to supervise a team of young engineers to work in R&D for MCB at the Lothian School, proving the concepts needed to eventually deploy his design for remotely controlled oceangoing MCB vessels. This technology was recently endorsed by Dr James Hansen et al in their article, Global Warming in the Pipeline, as the most innocuous way to research solar radiation management. It was a source of immense frustration and regret for Stephen that the climate establishment treated him as a pariah due to his advocacy of planetary cooling. He was excluded from the British delegation to the Glasgow COP26 climate conference, prompting him to observe that just the security budget for that event could have been enough to start cooling the planet with MCB. Similarly, he compared the costs of World War Two warships against the transfer prices paid for top footballers as a model for MCB costs, to illustrate how badly humanity fails to get our priorities right. As Stephen explained in a 2022 interview with Nick Breeze, a primary constraint for effective action to mitigate climate change is lack of funding for MCB research. This situation highlights the need for media, academic and government discussion of the major planetary security and ecology risks created by the political refusal to allow action to reflect more sunlight. Perhaps if more people had taken a scientific view on climate policy much of the extreme weather of recent years could have been mitigated with MCB, which offers the best available way to cut hurricane intensity, while also offering a rapid way to help refreeze the poles. Stephen had the foresight to arrange his affairs through the establishment of the Lothian School, so when humanity comes to reason and understands the urgent need to cool the planet, the technology could be well advanced to limit the ongoing damage of global warming.

We will remember Stephen fondly. He was a giant in the field of engineering and his legacy on marine engineering is that whilst he is now remembered for wave power helping society today, future generations may highlight some of his ideas which are still being developed. Such is the genius that his work is unlocking potential in others to make some of his other ideas a reality. Thank you Stephen for helping our world, and us.

When Stephen retired from the University of Edinburgh, three people were interviewed for the chair he held. I was one of them and all three of us were appointed!, although Ian Bryden was appointed to Stephen's Chair. I've always thought that you would have needed many more than three people to replace Stephen. Stephen would occasionally drop in to see me with a calculation, beautifully laid out in MathCAD, which he wanted an opinion on. I learned very quickly that what he wanted as very strong criticism of what he had done and any holes to be clearly identified. Sometimes I am sure this was some kind of test! Whatever came along though was always thought provoking.

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