Sixty-six years ago today (October 8th, 1958) British meteorologist Gordon Manley wrote to his friend, steam engineer Guy Callendar, who had – for the past twenty-plus years had been banging on about carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere as a (or even the) factor affecting the climate.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the International Geophysical Year was happening. More people were coming on board with the carbon dioxide theory, Gilbert Plass, GER Deakin, Appleton, etc. And Manley was congratulating Guy Callendar bless.
What we learn is that Guy Callendar was getting a little bit of recognition and was getting published still in journals like Tellus and so forth. But he wasn’t being carried through the streets on people’s shoulders, as perhaps he should have been. Such is the nature of humanity when the wrong person making the announcement, if you’re Miss Triggs.
What we learn is that you can be right and not get the credit you deserve. That’s one of the oldest stories in the book.
What happened next Callendar had a couple of more really astute observations in him about, for example, why theories aren’t popular, and so forth. And he died in 1964, 37 years to the day after Svante Arrhenius died.
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.
References
CP 1, Gordon Manley to Callendar, 8 October 1958, cited in Fleming, 2007
Also on this day:
October 8, 1959 – Shell says “nothing to see here” on carbon dioxide build-up
October 8, 1971 – Lord Kennet pushes back against Nature’s “John Maddox” on the greenhouse effect.
October 8, 1978 – The Times runs an “ice caps melting” story