07 How long has climate change science been developing?
Longer than most people know. More than a century. If you believe in electricity and airplanes and surgery and computers, you believe in the same science that is shouting a warning to us about climate change.The details here are The Last Generation by Fred Pearce details in BOOKS category title alphabetically listed but there is a mass of other evidence.
Concern about the planet is age-old. Jeremiah 2,500 years ago is reported as saying what translates as ‘Your wrong doing will upset nature’s order and your sins will terminate her generosity’.
By 1850 Fourier had shown mathematically that CO2 and some other gases trap heat. Tynall had also demonstrated this in the laboratory.
In 1895 Arrhenius wanted to know how ice ages and the warmer interglacial periods had been caused. He correctly calculated that halving or doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere would cool or warm the planet by about 5C. The science of global warming had begun.
In 1938, Callendar gave a lecture at the RoyalMeteorological Society, estimating from the fewmeasurements available that CO2 in the atmosphere had increased about 6% since 1900He said that it was caused by burning fossil fuelsand that the climate was warming.
In 1951 Keeling started regular measurements of CO2 every four hours at the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii 4,200 metres high (to avoid local variations).
From 315ppm in 1951, he recorded rise every year and for several decades and then others continued the work finding continuous rises every year until other methods were introduced this centuary.
The levels are now approaching 400ppm and rising faster.
We now know from ice-core data that the 1951 recording of 315ppm was already higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years.
Keeling warned repeatedly about the effects of global warming on climate.
The Keeling Curve graphic is in GRAPHICS or Go to: http://www.sccsresources.org.uk/?p=1153