Tag: Guy Callendar

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Science Scientists

December 30, 1957 – a letter from Gilbert Plass to Guy Callendar

Seventy six years ago, on this day, December 30, 1957, the English steam engineer Guy Callendar wrote to the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass

“Plass wrote to Callendar that Revelle and Suess and Arnold and Anderson had “attacked the carbon dioxide climatic theory ‘quite vigorously’ at a meeting earlier this year.”

They claimed that it was absolutely impossible to have had a sufficient increase in the CO2 amount in this century for the reasons that were given in their articles. I think you have pointed out several ways that their conclusion could be in error and I feel that there are still several possible explanations. 64 (Fleming 2007, p.81)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that American scientists who were studying carbon dioxide build-up and had been writing about it were still not quite sure what was going on. Understandably – if all the answers were obvious you wouldn’t need to explore anything, and that’s not how science works 

Guy Callendar had written the first serious “carbon dioxide is causing climate change” scientific article in 1938 presented it, to muted response, at the Royal Meteorological Society. 

Gilbert Plass was, more than anyone, responsible for putting carbon dioxide squarely on the agenda with his 1953 statements at the American Geophysical Union and then onwards in 1956 with his articles

What I think we can learn from this is that it’s always a messy murky picture in the early days of any issue. Later on it looks like a procession, but a good historian will try to remember the messiness and make it understandable, without removing the messiness.

Obviously that’s an ongoing process that we need to remember how little we knew and how confused the picture was.

What happened next

Callendar kept writing articles and letters. He died in 1964.

Gilbert Plass continued to be engaged for another few years on the climate issue and then wasn’t.

Roger Revelle died in 1991, having spent a long time trying to get the US state and others scientists politicians to take climate change seriously/

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.

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November 19, 1943 – FIDO used for the first time

Eighty years ago, on this day, November 19, 1943, the burn-enormous-amounts-of-petrol-to-disperse-fog-so-bombers-can-land was used for the first time.

From the time of the first operational use of FIDO at Graveley on the 19/20 November 1943 until the end of the year, thirty-nine successful landings were made. 

Fleming, 2007, p.56.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 310ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was Guy Callendar’s bright idea of burning off fog that would prevent RAF planes from returning to base got its first actual physical use, saving crews’ lives so they could continue bombing campaigns against military targets and against civilians. It’s a war.

What I think we can learn from this

Local weather manipulation and global patterns have a backstory

What happened next

 FIDO continued to get used through to the end of the war. 

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.

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Science Scientists

November 19, 1960 – Guy Callendar gives advice on unpopularity of C02 theory

Sixty three years ago, on this day, November 19, 1960, English steam engineer Guy Callendar noted that the carbon dioxide theory was not universally accepted.

In 1961 he published the results of his study in the Quarterly Journal, concluding that the pattern of recent climatic warming was not incompatible with his hypothesis of increased carbon dioxide radiation.”67 …. As this paper was going to press, Callendar wrote a note listing “[Four] reasons for the unpopularity of CO2 theory in some meteorological quarters.” Although there was no organized opposition to anthropogenic climate change at the time, Callendar’s note reads much like a contemporary response to global warming skeptics:

a. The idea of a single (easily explained) factor causing world wide climatic change seems impossible to those familiar with the complexity of the forces on which any and every climate depends.

b. The idea that man’s actions could influence so vast a complex [system] is very repugnant to some. 

c. The meteorological authorities of the past have pronounced against it, mainly on the basis of faulty observations of water vapour absorption, but also because they had not studied the problem to anything like the extent required to pronounce on it.

d. Last but not the least. They did not think of it themselves!

68. CP 1, Levinson, 19 November 1960

Source: James Roger Fleming 2007 The Life and Times of Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964)  p.82

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Callendar had continued writing after the war on climate and had corresponded extensively with Gilbert Plass, the man most responsible for bringing the carbon dioxide theory to prominence in the United States. 

This article with these notes to himself was written after he’d submitted something for publication. And they bear thinking about in terms of why good ideas or sound ideas don’t go further. It’s classic, “not invented here” syndrome. People are unwilling to accept good ideas from people they don’t like.

What I think we can learn from this

is that awareness of intellectual resistance to facts is hardly novel. Even around climate, it goes back further than perhaps you think

What happened next

Callendar’s paper got published. It was his last one. Callendar died in early 1964, on the same day of the year as Svante Arrhenius who died in 1927 (LINK).

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.

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Science

October 2, 1927/64 – Svante Arrhenius and Guy Callendar die.

On this day, October 2nd 1927, Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius died.

The guy who did the back of envelope calculations (big envelope, it took him a year).  

The atmospheric c02 level was 305ppm. It is now about 421ppm.

See also “Megascience” thing from Ambio

From Arrhenius to megascience: interplay between science and public decision making https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4314553.pdf

By coincidence, exactly 37 years later, British scientists and engineer Guy Callendar died. (See here).

On Callendar, James Fleming has done excellent work (link).

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 316.87ppm. At time of writing it was 421ish ppm – but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

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May 19, 1937 – Guy Callendar’s carbon dioxide warning lands on someone’s desk

On this day, 85 years ago, a paper with the catchy title “THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TEMPERATURE” landed on the desk of the editor of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Journal. It was by one Guy Callendar, who was not even a “proper” scientist, “merely” a careful and diligent collector of data…

Historian James Fleming has written about Callendar – see here.

What happened next?

The paper was accepted. Callendar presented his findings, to general indifference (people who, 40 years later were serious players in the emerging climate consensus were present in the room, e.g. Kenneth Hare).

Callendar’s work caught the attention of scientists such as Hermann Flohn and Gilbert Plass, and was well known to the Roger Revelles and Hans Seuss’s of the world.

Why this matters

At this point, I should make clear what I am NOT saying.

I do not think anyone in 1938, hearing Callendar, should have dropped everything and raised immediate alarm. In 1938 the species – or at least the British Establishment – had other things on its mind.

I don’t even particularly “blame” people much later. I think it is really only in the late 1970s that the precautionary principle properly kicks in, and that the evidence and scientific consensus is strong enough to warrant serious action. This action did not come. Thanks Ronald. Thanks Margaret. Thanks Malcolm.

[The question of whether that consensus could have been accelerated if proper action was taken at the end of the 60s? I am agnostic. It is also not the most useful question to ask, I guess.]

So, we should know the history, but not use it to blame people for things that they could not by any reasonable measure have done that much about.

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Science Scientists

May 5, 1953 – Western Australian newspaper carries “climate and carbon dioxide” article

On May 5 1953, yes, 1953, The West Australian newspaper had a short piece with Gilbert Plass, warning the American Geophysical Union about the build-up of. carbon dioxide…

Image from Brad Johnson’s excellent site

Plass was a geochemist who had read Guy Callendar and understood what he was talking about.

Why this matters

Let’s not pretend that 1988 was the first time anyone heard about climate change. That said, this sort of “we were warned” thing can be a little bit unfair. Because there are all sorts of potential threats, potential problems in the world. And if we responded to all of them, instantly with alarm, we’d never get anything done.

But certainly, I think by the late 60s, early 70s, we did know enough to be concerned. And we didn’t act in accordance with that concern. And here we are.

What happened next?

Plass kept on for a little while, and even attended the 1963 Conservation Foundation meeting in New York. But he didn’t do further climate work. There’s a good account of him in Alice Bell’s “Our Greatest Experiment,” btw.