Category: Scientists

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Science Scientists

October 15, 1985 – Villach meeting supercharges greenhouse concerns…

On this day, October 15 in 1985, scientists from around the world began a meeting that would lead to the final arrival of the climate “issue” on the international agenda.  Here is the beginning of an article by prominent science writer Fred Pearce, writing in 2005…

“The week the climate changed; Villach, a sleepy spa town in southern Austria, is not an obvious place from which to change the world. But 20 years ago this week, a conference there became the spark that lit today’s burning concern about global warming. Before Villach, the greenhouse effect was a subject for specialised physicists – a possible problem for future generations and nothing more. After Villach, global warming swiftly became the world’s top environmental story. The conference, say the people who were there, was the catalyst for the formation of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the gatekeeper for the science of climate change – and led to the Kyoto protocol. So what happened? Was it atmospheric chemistry or personal chemistry?

Pearce – “The Week the Climate Changed” New Scientist

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 343.35ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – since the early 1970s there had been international meetings of scientists to look at Man’s Impact on the Climate/Environment, in various places (Williamstown, Wijk, Norwich, Villach). From 1972 some of these meetings had been co-sponsored by the UN Environment Program, alongside the World Meteorological Organisation. The models got better, the scientists got surer of what was happening, what might happen…

The Villach 1985 meeting is the one at which the non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases got properly added up, and they realised trouble was afoot, less hypothetically and sooner than they’d been thinking…

Why this matters. 

History is good, isn’t it? If you didn’t think that, you’d not be reading this site.

What happened next?

American senators got the message – in December we’ll talk about Carl Sagan’s testimony in December 1985.  The US Department of State, nervous about being bounced into binding international action on carbon dioxide the way they had been about ozone, decided to slow the whole thing down and make sure governments got to vet scientific statements…

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Australia Science Scientists

October 13, 2005 – “Climate Change: Turning up the Heat” published

On this day, 13 October 2005, a comprehensive book explaining climate change, by the Australian scientist Barrie Pittock was released. It was called, aptly, “Climate Change: Turning up the Heat.” 

[On this day the PPM was 377.19

Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.]

Why this matters

People like Barrie Pittock, working on climate change from the 70s onwards, deserve all the accolades for their patient, long work on trying to get Australians to take climate change seriously. It is not their fault they were overwhelmed by the forces of greed and wilful ignorance.

What happened next?

The following year, in late 2006, climate change re-emerged as an ‘urgent’ public policy issue.  Nowt got done, of course…

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Science Scientists United States of America

October 12, 1976 – Jule Charney throws (private) shade on fellow climatologists…

On this day, October 12 in 1976, an eminent US scientist was dismissive (in a personal letter) of Stephen Schneider et al.

12 Oct 1976 None of the “speculative ideas of people like … Schneider on future climate change are worth the paper (usually newspaper) they are written on. They mislead the public and they do the field harm,” Charney concluded in a separate letter.

Jule  Charney to Warren Kornberg, 12 October 1976, Box 13 – NSF, 1955-81, Papers of Jule Charney,  MIT Institute Archives, Cambridge, MA. 

(Henderson, 2014 Dilemmas of Reticence)

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 328.72ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

In the mid 1970s there was a flurry of books about climate change and its impacts. Only a very few of them focussed on the importance of carbon dioxide build-up – others saw the problem in dust, or ‘waste heat’. The grand old men of the field – Charney, Landsberg et al, feared that popularisation/tabloid style claims would damage the credibility of the field. 

Why this matters. 

Scientists – justifiably – worry about large claims and whether they are sound, since if the claims and predictions turn out to be wrong, all scientists suffer.

What happened next?

Charney changed his tune in 1979, agreeing that unless something very odd indeed happened, then a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to serious warming…

Schneider went on to do much more great work.

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Ignored Warnings Ireland Science Scientists

October 9, 1979 – Hermann Flohn warns Irish of “possible consequences of a man-made warming”

On this day, October 9 in 1979, Hermann Flohn (major German scientist) gave a talk about “possible climatic consequences of a man-made global warming” at a conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Flohn H. 1980: Possible climatic consequences of a man-made global warming. In: R. Kavanagh (Ed.): Energy System Analysis. Proc. Intern. Conf. Dublin, 9-11 Oct. 1979, D. Reidel Publ. Comp., Dordrecht, 558-568. (1981: Life on a warmer Earth, Possible climatic consequences of man-made global warming. Executive Report 3, based on research by H. Flohn, Intern. Inst. for Applied System Analysis IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, pp. 59.)

https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/1097/1/WP-79-086.pdf

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 334.24ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – by the late 1970s, scientists who studied climate, energy systems etc had come to some conclusions

  1. Carbon dioxide really was building up in the atmosphere
  2. This would have real consequences 

They tried to get politicians to pay attention.  Oops

Why this matters. 

By the late 1970s we knew enough (earlier than that, I think there was room for doubt)

What happened next?

Flohn kept trying. Others kept trying. Eventually, in 1988, the issue “broke through”.

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Australia Ignored Warnings Science Scientists

September 15, 1980 – Australian scientists hold “Carbon Dioxide and Climate” symposium in Canberra

On this day, 15 September 1980, Australian scientists met in Canberra to discuss carbon dioxide and its build-up…

1980, 15 to 17 September, Carbon Dioxide and Climate – Australian Academy of Science symposium in Canberra

“In 1980, the Australian Academy of Science held a conference to review 20 years of measurements showing increasing carbon-dioxide levels, and by then there was an understanding that the greenhouse effect would result in climate change.”

Staples, J. 2009 page 2

And it got reported in the Canberra Times….

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Scientists

September 13, 1992/1994- Scientists traduced, ignored

On this day, September 13 1992, Roger Revelle’s daughter wrote an op-ed  about the way her father, ailing, had been exploited by climate denialists. (see also Oreskes and Conway 2010, page 195)

Contrary to George Will’s “Al Gore’s Green Guilt” {op-ed, Sept. 3} Roger Revelle – our father and the “father” of the greenhouse effect – remained deeply concerned about global warming until his death in July 1991. That same year he wrote: “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” Will and other critics of Sen. Al Gore have seized these words to suggest that Revelle, who was also Gore’s professor and mentor, renounced his belief in global warming.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

http://uscentrist.org/platform/positions/environment/context-environment/john_coleman/carolyn-revelle-what-my-father-really-said

On this day the PPM was 353.01 Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Exactly two years after this was published, Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman was trying to educate ALP politicians about the facts of life (on earth)

It’s quite possible that the turning point in the debate over one of the key environmental issues facing the Keating Government came on an early spring afternoon in the Cabinet room when the Minister for the Environment, Senator John Faulkner, wasn’t even there.

Over 90 minutes on September 13, a world renowned atmospheric scientist [Dr Graeme Pearman] gave a rare briefing to Cabinet ministers on the extent of the great environmental dilemma of our age – the greenhouse gas phenomenon.

McLean, L. 1994. D Day in Gas debate. The Australian, December 5, p. 20.

On this day the PPM was 355.86 Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

“Every disaster movie starts with a scientist being ignored.”

And when scientists tell the truth, they must either be traduced or ignored.

What happened next?

Pearman finally retired in 2004. He has tried to educate folks. Australian political (and economic) leaders largely just did not want to know. And here we are.

Categories
Science Scientists

August 8, 1975 – first academic paper to use term “global warming” published

On this day, August 8 1975 the first academic paper to use the term “global warming” was published

“Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?”, Wallace S. Broecker, Science, 8 August 1975

Apparently Wally Broecker didn’t like having been the first and offered 200 bucks to anyone who could find an earlier instance.

Broecker, who has appeared on this site here in connection to an April 1980 letter he wrote to Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas, was a mensch.

On this day the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was 329.95 ppm. It is now 421ish,  but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Articles like this helped people understand what was going on. By the late 1970s, we knew enough.

What happened next?

Broecker, and others, kept at it. It’s not the scientists who are to blame, imo. Oh well.

Categories
Ignored Warnings Science Scientists United States of America

August 3, 1970 – Nixon warned about climate change and icecaps melting

On this day, 3 August 1970, the first report of the Council on Environmental Quality was delivered to Preside Nixon. It contained a chapter on inadvertent weather modification, carbon dioxide build-up and icecaps melting. 

The CEQ had been set up as part of the legislative process that had gathered momentum under Johnson and come to fruition by late 1969.  

On this day the PPM was 324.69ppm

Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

By early 1970s, folks were going “you know, this really might become a problem.”  By the mid-late 1970s the smarter ones dropped the “might”…

What happened next?

The CEQ didn’t return to the climate issue until Carter, best I can tell. And then Gus Speth, as its boss, got cracking with getting things moving, having been nudged by Gordon MacDonald and Rafe Pomerance of Friends of the Earth.

Gordon MacDonald had already been writing about this stuff (see his chapter in the Nigel Calder book). He would go on to be important in the fight against synfuels.

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Science Scientists

July 29, 1974 – the World (will be heating) according to GARP

On this day, July 29 1974 a World Meteorological Organisation conference on climate modelling began, running until 10 August. 

As Bert Bolin (one of THE key figures) wrote in the foreword-

At the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in June 1972, it was emphasized that the earth’s climate is of basic importance to man and his well-being. Climatic variability and possible change are still essentially unpredictable although they are significant factors in the continued development of both industrialized and developing countries. Some of the most important problems that confront us were very well summarized in the SMIC report “Study of Man’s Impact on Climate”, (1) which was available at the UN conference and served as an important reference document. In recommendation 79d of the conference, it was recommended that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in co-operation with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) “continue to carry out the GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Programme) to better understand the general circulation of the atmosphere, the causes of climatic change and whether these causes are natural or the result of man’s activities”.

At its eighth session in London in March 1973, the JOC considered in detail the role of GARP for studies of climate and its fluctuations. It was proposed that the next step towards an active programme would be the organization of an International Study Conference on the Physical Basis of Climate and Climate Modelling….

The conference was held at Wijk outside Stockholm during the period 29 July to 10 August 1974 with a total attendance of about 70 scientists from different parts of the world. Their devoted work during two weeks has resulted in the present report.

https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=7112

Why this matters. 

These were the building blocks – between 1970 and 1975 – when climate scientists patiently assembled the evidence, debated, refined. By about 1976/7 it was pretty clear what was coming, just a question of when (how fast, in what order). They did try to warn the politicians. And some of the politicians kinda sorta listened a bit.

What happened next?

The scientists kept at it. (Impact) Science is very very cool.. Some joined the dots, understood the implications, quicker than others. By 1979 the smarter ones were getting quite nervous….

UPDATE 3 July 2024. See this 1995 interview with CC Warren.

WMO started already in the 1970’s to concentrate more than before on climate problems. An Executive Committee panel on Climate Change was established in 1975, with Dr. Bill Gibbs from Australia as Chairman, and CCL, under the chairmanship of Helmut Landsberg, from 1973, re-oriented its effort towards environmental problems related to climate. About the same time, in 1974, the Global Atmospheric Research Program had a meeting in Stockholm in order to agree on which problems related to climate that should be of main interest to this program in the next few years. In fact the meeting discussed the fundamental question to change the classical approach to climate studies from the statistical one towards a more physically-oriented one. In fact in the Stockholm Conference on the Physics of Climate in 1974, the numerical forecasting modelers who had worked for about ten years or more on modeling the general circulation of the atmosphere were now interested in trying to apply similar mathematical approaches to the global circulation of the atmosphere and to other aspects of understanding of the future climate. It would then be possible to clarify what could be expected to happen on the globe, if the increase of the carbon dioxide from human emissions from burning fossil fuel would continue without change.
The Global Atmospheric Research Program, when it had been accepted by the U.N. in 1962, included a proposal for a program divided into two parts: one on the experiment to improve the weather forecasting on the basis of increased observations around the globe. This experiment, proposed for about ten years by Bo Doos in WMO, had in 1974, reached a stage where it could be expected to take place within the next five years. For that reason, Dr. Bert Bolin, who was in charge of the Global Atmospheric Research Program, thought that it was timely to start with the second part of the GARP program, namely the climate part. This was the basic reason why the Conference in Stockholm in 1974 was called and the physical foundations of climate were established.

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Science Scientists United States of America

July 23, 1979 – Charney Report people meet – will conclude “yep, global warming is ‘A Thing’.”

On this day, 23 July 1979, the  “Ad Hoc Study Group on C02 and Climate” begins at Woods Hole, giving us the  “Charney Report.”

Short version – a scientist (Gordon MacDonald) and a Friends of the Earth activist (Rafe Pomerance) had managed to get President Jimmy Carter’s science advisor (Frank Press) to get Carter to request a study on whether this “greenhouse effect” thing was gonna actually be the problem some were saying.

So folks met, under the leadership of one of the big original beasts of atmospheric science, Jule Charney.

And they came up with the view, “yes”.

See this excellent summary, written by Neville Nicholls, an Australian scientist

Here’s a flowery (but good) bit from Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth”–

The scientists summoned by Jule Charney to judge the fate of civilization arrived on July 23, 1979, with their wives, children and weekend bags at a three-story mansion in Woods Hole, on the southwestern spur of Cape Cod. They would review all the available science and decide whether the White House should take seriously Gordon MacDonald’s prediction of a climate apocalypse. The Jasons had predicted a warming of two or three degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century, but like Roger Revelle before them, they emphasized their reasons for uncertainty. Charney’s scientists were asked to quantify that uncertainty. They had to get it right: Their conclusion would be delivered to the president. But first they would hold a clambake.

They gathered with their families on a bluff overlooking Quissett Harbor and took turns tossing mesh produce bags stuffed with lobster, clams and corn into a bubbling caldron. While the children scrambled across the rolling lawn, the scientists mingled with a claque of visiting dignitaries, whose status lay somewhere between chaperone and client — men from the Departments of State, Energy, Defense and Agriculture; the E.P.A.; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They exchanged pleasantries and took in the sunset. It was a hot day, high 80s, but the harbor breeze was salty and cool. It didn’t look like the dawning of an apocalypse.

Why this matters. 

“We” really knew enough by the late 70s. Everything since then has been footnotes.

What happened next?

Carter lost the 1980 election, handsomely. It would be another 8 years before the simulacrum of international action began.