Guy Callendar, the engineer who discovered human-caused global warming

[reaperman]

Crediting someone in 1938 with "discovering" anthropogenic global warming might be misattributing a bit?

Climate change due to industrial emissions of CO2 has been known and published in mainstream news articles since at least 110 years ago.[0][1]

It's been known and discussed in public by professional scientists for over 140 years[2].

The great inaugural Nobel Prize winner, Arrhenius, wrote a paper on the topic in 1896[3] which cited Fourier's publication from 1827[4].

More generally, global greenhouse effect of CO2 has been known for at least 185 years[4], a decade before the last founding father of the United States died.

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0: The Rodney and Otamatea Times (Aug 1912) https://www.livescience.com/63334-coal-affecting-climate-cen...

1: Popular Mechanics (Mar 1912): https://books.google.com/books?id=Tt4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA341&lpg=...

2: Nature (1882): https://www.nature.com/articles/027127c0

3: Journal of Science (Apr 1896) https://doi.org/10.1080/14786449608620846

4: M ́emoire sur les Temp ́eratures du Globe Terrestre et des Espaces Plan ́etaires, M ́emoires d l’Acad ́emie Royale des Sciences de l’Institute de France VII 570-604 (1827): https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/Fourier1827Trans.pd... (English Translation)

[baxtr]

Excerpt from your second citation Nature (1882) paper:

From this we may conclude that the increasing pollution of the atmosphere will have a marked influence on the climate of the world.

The mountainous regions will be colder, the Arctic regions will be colder, the tropics will be warmer, and throughout the world the nights will be colder, and the days warmer.

In the Temperate Zone winter will be colder, and generally differences will be greater, winds, storms, rainfall greater.

[perrygeo]

I hadn't seen the Fourier paper before, nice. He doesn't really go into CO2 but focuses more on general atmosphere heating. I really appreciate the translator's notes.

Eunice Foot (1856) and John Tyndall (1859) independently characterized how CO2 absorbs radiant heat, and both postulated on the potential climate impacts. Tyndall is often given the credit as the founder of climate science but Foot was first.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.006...

[cs702]

Thank you for sharing this. I upvoted the OP so your comment would get more views!

[graeme]

The article mentions Arrhenius

[ecshafer]

In the 1800s the lakes in New Jersey would freeze solid to the point that there were companies who would cut ice in New Jersey and store it to be sold in New York in the summer. Nowadays the mid atlantic is lucky to get a few inches of snow at a time, and I doubt a single lake in New Jersey has frozen enough to walk on in 30 years. Even places like Upstate New York, famous for their snowfall and long winters, have long stretches of winter with above freezing temperatures where all of the snow melts. The effects are extremely pronounced and the climate is nothing like it was in the 1800s now.

[technotony]

This isn't just climate change though, that period was significantly colder than previous periods (google 'little ice age'). Not disputing man made climate change at all, but the earth naturally goes through warming and cooling phases and we shouldn't expect New York to be as cold as 1800 today even without climate change.

Of course this kind of natural change is what gives ammunition to climate deniers!

[hackerlight]

About a week ago there was a freak heatwave in West Africa that caused almost 100 excess deaths. These events are going to get more common near the equator, and this will drive climate refugees.

[joecool1029]

> I doubt a single lake in New Jersey has frozen enough to walk on in 30 years

Not disputing the spirit of your comment but from Jan 2013 I have photos of myself walking on Budd Lake. It was the first time I had ever been on a frozen lake. So it does still happen inside that timeframe, but yes it's uncommon now.

[madcaptenor]

I'd heard about this being a thing in Massachusetts but I didn't realize it went so far south as New Jersey!

[zug_zug]

> he showed [atmospheric CO2] at 315 parts per million in 1958; today it is 421 ppm; in the pre-industrial 19th century, it had rested around 280 ppm)

Wow, somehow I was unaware that we had raised atmospheric CO2 by 50% -- that's impressive in sense.

[hn_throwaway_99]

This is why I am completely, totally baffled that anyone tries to still deny the anthropogenic source of climate change.

I fully understand that climate models are mind boggingly complex, and that it's incredibly difficult to predict how all the different intertwined factors will play out in real time. But at a very fundamental level, we've drastically increased one of the primary greenhouse gas concentrations at a rate unseen in Earth's history (not to mention many of the other major greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide). Literally no sane person disputes that fact. How could we think that making this major change to Earth's climate system wouldn't have huge effects?

[saalweachter]

We've actually burned nearly enough carbon to double the atmospheric CO2 levels, but other sinks (eg, the acidifying oceans) have taken up enough that only about half stayed in the atmosphere.

[moralestapia]

It gets even worse. Around ~800 ppm you get noticeable cognitive impairment in humans. We may get there by 2100.

i.e. in the next generation, unless one's home is equipped with a fancy filtration system, breathing air will have issues on its own, anywhere in the world.

[barrenko]

The only thing I needed to find out is that warming of the oceans is measured in HIROSHIMAS per second.

[meindnoch]

2 million years ago it was 180ppm.

[chrisbrandow]

This would be clearer if the title said something like, “provided 1st definitive evidence of…“, in order to distinguish it from earlier attempts to propose or prove global warming effects of CO2.

Otherwise very cool link.

[hammock]

Link to the actual paper: https://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/qjcallender38.pdf

[yieldcrv]

what about that blurb from the 1912 newspaper article

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/13/fac...

or the 1896 paper ""On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground"

[saalweachter]

The article does actually mention the earlier work, but says they weren't compelling enough/theoretical rather than evidence-based.

[sevagh]

Is the lowercasing of his last name Callendar part of HN's automated butchery of titles?

[gxs]

> He also implied that a non-expert could not possibly understand atmospheric processes well enough to calculate the effects of solar radiation which Callendar had asserted was being absorbed in greater quantities by increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

Sounds like he posted his findings to HN.

[fsmv]

It sure took us a long time to accept the evidence

[skyechurch]

The (public) debate is not about the science, and hasn't been for a while. It's maneuvering to avoid getting stuck with the check.

[cortesoft]

Many people still don’t accept it

[VFIT7CTO77TOC]

It doesn't help that powerful entities use it as a trojan horse to further less noble agendas, think of the patriot act as an example.

[hedora]

The fossil fuel industry had accepted it by the '70s or maybe early '80s.

It is taking a long time for the resulting concerted disinformation campaign to fall apart though.

[SpaceManNabs]

Peer review was broken back then too. It is just too perverse and dismissive. Peer reviewers have a bias to discredit novel results that are true. I feel terribly for Callendar not being recognized.

[tambourine_man]

If I was reading a fiction novel and the character making predictions for decades in the future had a last name “Callendar” I would chuckle and think the autor was unimaginative, over-literal.

Alas, reality is often more on the nose than one would expect.

See lithium batteries, a technology with many problems but probably our best bet for the energy transition, being invented by a guy named Goodenough.

[nfriedly]

'Callendar' should be capitalized in the title, as it's his last name. (I assume HN automatically changed it.)

[tauchunfall]

I know that last names are capitalized in french writing convention, but I never saw it in english.

*Edit:* Ahh I see, capitalized not uppercased.

[dang]

No, it was just a typo when I edited the title the other day. Fixed now. Thanks!

[Rinzler89]

I also learned "Guy" is a French name and not another word for dude.

[a3w]

Apples did not fall from trees before Newton. That time was confusing.