Science

The Sea Around Us

1951 American marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson publishes the New York Times bestseller The Sea Around Us, including observations about pronounced warming in the Arctic regions of the Earth In a chapter in The Sea Around Us entitled 鈥淭he Global Thermostat,鈥 Rachel Carson observes, 鈥淣ow in our lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration […]

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Emissions Estimation

1938 English engineer and amateur meteorologist Guy Callendar concludes that humans have added about 150,000 million tonnes of CO2 to the air over the previous 50 years 鈥淭he artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature,鈥 a paper by Guy Callendar appearing in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, concludes that […]

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Temperature Prediction

1904 Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius concludes that the Earth鈥檚 temperature might increase by 5 to 6 degrees Celsius with a doubling of atmospheric CO2 Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius follows early 19th century scientists Jean-Baptiste Fourier and John Tyndall to investigate the role of greenhouse gases in warming Earth鈥檚 surface. Tens of thousands of hand calculations […]

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John Tyndall

Warming Demonstrated

1861 Irish physicist John Tyndall demonstrates experimentally that water vapor and other gases warm the atmosphere John Tyndall, in the article 鈥淥n the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction,鈥 reports on an experimental apparatus to demonstrate and measure the heat-trapping impact of […]

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First Hypothesis

1824 French mathematician and physicist Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier first hypothesizes that the atmosphere plays a significant role in mediating temperature on Earth Fourier, in the article 鈥淕eneral Remarks on the Temperature of the Earth and Outer Space,鈥 likens the effect of the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere in regulating global temperature to a glass covered box: 鈥淭he […]

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