Guy Callendar was the first to connect human activities to global warming : The Conversation / Baquer Namazi

I thought that you would be interested in this story about the debate that erupted in 1938 of the role of humans on climate change thanks to the work of an amateur meteorologist. 

 Baquer

A mild-mannered biker triggered a huge debate over humans’ role in climate change – in the early 20th century

This is a short excerpt - see link below for the full article.

In 1938, a British engineer and amateur meteorologist made a discovery that set off a fierce debate about climate change.

Scientists had known for decades that carbon dioxide could trap heat and warm the planet. But Guy Callendar was the first to connect human activities to global warming.

He showed that land temperatures had increased over the previous half-century, and he theorized that people were unwittingly raising Earth’s temperature by burning fossil fuels in furnaces, factories and even his beloved motorcycles.

When Callendar published his findings, it set off a firestorm. The scientific establishment saw him as an outsider and a bit of a meddling gentleman scientist. But, he was right.

His theory became widely known as “the Callendar Effect.” Today, it’s known as global warming. Callendar defended his theory until his death in 1964, increasingly bewildered that the science met such resistance from those who did not understand it.

Building on over a century of climate science

A theoretical basis for climate change had been developed over the 114 years leading up to Callendar’s research.

Scientists including Joseph Fourier, Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius had developed an understanding of how water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere trapped heat, noted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also absorbed large quantities of heat and speculated about how increasing fossil fuel use could raise Earth’s temperature and change the climate.

However, these scientists spoke only of future possibilities. Callendar showed global warming was already happening.

Click here for the full article in the Conversation