Twenty six years ago, on this day, June 23, 1997, German climatologist Hermann Flohn died.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was this – Flohn was aware of Guy Callendar’s work. During the war he had written about the greenhouse effect. By the late 1950s/early 60s was part of the small band of people paying close attention to what was going on. He was present at the January 1961 meeting in New York of the New York AAAS.
By the early 1970s he was briefing senior politicians including Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was engaging with Australian scientists in the 1970s, and in 1982 he was at the 148th meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement Association for the Advancement of science and was quoted in the New York Times on 7th January 1982 and then in the Christian Science monitor in February 1982
In 1993 he had the pleasure of being on a platform with Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels who were denying, well, 19th century physics.
Flohn has not had enough credit for what he did.
What I think we can learn from this
The official histories don’t always give enough credit to people who deserve it.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.