On this day, November 15, in 1958 one of the first papers about, well, our current problem, was submitted for publication.
1958 Bolin and Eriksson’s classic paper “Changes in the Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere and Sea Due to Fossil Fuel Combustion” submitted.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 315ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Through the 1950s, American and Swedish scientists (and others) were looking at carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and saying to themselves “now that’s interesting.”
Why this matters.
We knew
What happened next?
Bolin? It became Bolin’s life work. He shepherded the climate science agenda forward with skill and patience for decades. He was a key player all through the 1970s and 1980s. First chair of the IPCC. Thank goodness for him he died when he did, before the farce of Copenhagen and so on.