On this day, December 11 in 1895, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius read his would-eventually-be-’famous’ paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground at the Swedish Academy of Science.
It was published the following year
You can read it here – https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
For discussion, see
Hamblyn, R. 2009. The whistleblower and the canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change. Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 35, pp.223-236
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 295ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters
This has become the touchstone for “how long we’ve known” pieces.
What happened next
Arrhenius’ assumptions (and those whose work he drew on) were challenged by Angstrom et al. The idea that a build up of carbon dioxide could cause warming was thrown in the dustbin, and – despite Guy Callendar – only really got pulled out in the 1950s…
One reply on “December 11, 1895 – Arrhenius reads his “Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air” paper to Swedish Academy of Science…”
Here we are, the only sentient creatures on Earth with unlimited ambition, urging us in all directions, the only problem is that the resources to achieve our ambition are limited and have alternative uses, and life is short, in the face of Putin, Trump, and Musk, “to hell with them that come after us!” After the first version of us climbed down from the trees to the savanna in Africa, 5 million or so years ago. How long do we actually have left?