On this day, November 20, 1974, the BBC showed a documentary “The Weather Machine”, which makes glancing and largely dismissive mention of carbon dioxide build-up as a cause of the changing weather patterns by then being studied more intently…
“On Wednesday evening, immediately following The Frost Interview, the BBC broadcast its much heralded, prestige extravaganza The Weather Machine (BBC2, November 20, 9.00 p.m.); the latest in a series of annual productions which began so successfully back in 1970 with Violent Universe. Excellently assisted by the studio commentary of Magnus Magnusson, the modulated narrative tones of Eric Porter and, more importantly, by the availability of a six figure budget, producer Alec Nisbett endeavoured to squeeze into 120 minutes of airspace the fruits of twelve months globetrotting “
Nature 22nd November1974
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 330ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – from the early 1970s, a series of extreme weather events made the weather, well, newsworthy….
Why this matters.
We should be fair to folks back then- there was a lot of different data and arguments out there. With hindsight it is “obvious” that carbon dioxide was definitely the culprit. Hindsight is famously 20/20…
What happened next?
Through the 1970s climate scientists became more and more convinced of what was going on, what was coming – sooner or later. They tried to raise the alarm…