Sixty five years ago, on this day, May 9th, 1959, a popular science journal, Science News, covered the findings of Swedish climate scientist Bert Bolin.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 316ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bolin had been paying attention. His boss Carl Rossby was now dead and Bolin was stepping up and had spoken at the AAAS meeting earlier that year.
What we learn – it wasn’t a big secret or surprise or particularly controversial, that CO2 would increase rapidly. Since Gilbert Plass’s statements in 1953 this was common knowledge.
What happened next Bolin kept working on it, kept pressing. By the early 1970s had got the United Nations Environment Program, created at Stockholm, on side and then became first IPCC chair. He died in 2007.
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.
Also on this day:
May 9, 2009 – Another white flag goes up on the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”