F. Sherwood Rowland, the UC Irvine chemistry professor who warned the world that man-made chemicals could erode the ozone layer, has died. He was 84, AP reported.

Rowland, known as Sherry, died at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson's disease, the university announced.

In 1995, Rowland was one of three people awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work explaining how chlorofluorocarbons, ubiquitous substances once used in an array of products from spray deodorant to industrial solvents, could destroy the ozone layer, the protective atmospheric blanket that screens out many of the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

The prize was awarded more than two decades after Rowland warned of the problem, and challenges to his theory plagued him for many years before he won widespread recognition for his work and leaders of nations worldwide began to act to ban or reduce usage of the chemicals.

The ozone discovery earned Rowland many prizes and prestige. He served as president of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science and was a longtime member of the National Academy of Sciences. He remained active at UC Irvine long after most of his peers retired and until earlier this year continued working in his campus office at Rowland Hall, which is named for him. As the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth Science, he traveled widely to lecture and consult on environmental issues and prodded younger researchers in the Irvine chemistry department.