August 23, 1856 –  Eunice Foote identifies carbon dioxide as greenhouse gas

On this day in 1856 American scientist and women’s rights campaigner Eunice Foote illustrated her findings in a paper entitled, “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays,” which was accepted at the eighth annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting on August 23, 1856 in Albany, NY. Back in the day, what we now call carbon dioxide was known as carbonic acid…

See Alice Bell’s “Our Biggest Experiment” for more about Foote, and also the wikipedia entry linked to above…

On this day the atmospheric carbon dioxide was 285 ppm (see here).  Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.

As David Morrow usefully notes

“You can read more about the significance of Foote’s research in Raymond Sorenson’s 2011 article on Foote’s research and his 2018 addendum to it, as well as in Leila McNeill’s 2016 article on Foote’s discovery in Smithsonian Magazine.”

Why this matters. 

An interesting foote-note? (sorry, it was there, had to use it). Good for thinking with around (lack of) opportunities for women/amateurs.

What happened next?

John Tyndall wrote about this a few years later. Had he seen Foote’s work? We will never know. Maybe. Probably.