On this day, 1st September 1972, the British meteorologist J.S. Sawyer had a paper “Man-made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse” Effect” in Nature..
Sawyer, in four pages, summarised what was known and what could be reasonably expected in the short-term (up to the year 2000).
In September 2007, 35 years later, the Australian meteorologist Neville Nicholls had a letter in the same journal, argued that “Sawyer’s prediction of a reversal of this trend, and of the correct magnitude of the warming, is perhaps the most remarkable long-range forecast ever made.”
On this day the atmospheric CO2 level was 324.84 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters
It is unfair to blame politicians for not having acted in 1972. But they could/should have started paying attention then. By the late 1970s there really was enough certainty among scientists for real action to begin (to be clear, real action has still not – 40 years on from that putative deadline – begun. Oh well).
What happened next?
Sawyer kept working.
As Agar (2015) notes “In 1974, the Met Office had marked an expanding interest in climate by starting a working party on world climatology, ‘with specific emphasis on climatic change’, under J.S. Sawyer, the Met Office’s director of research.”
Sawyer was asked by the Cabinet Office in 1976 for his opinion of American climate scientist Reid Bryson (see All Our Yesterdays post about that here).