Climate Science - 1824 to the present

The Short History:

• 1824 - Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect.
• 1859 - John Tyndall discovered that H₂O and CO₂ absorb infrared confirming the Fourier greenhouse effect.
• 1896 - Svante Arrhenius proposed human CO₂ emissions would prevent earth from entering next ice age (challenged 1906).
• 1950’s Guy Callendar found H2O and CO2 did not overlap all spectra bands, therefore warming from CO₂expected (countered the 1906 objections against Arrhenius).
• 1955 - Hans Suess identified the isotopic signature of industrial based CO₂ emissions.
• 1956 - Gilbert Plass calculated adding CO₂ would significantly change radiation balance.
• 1957 - Revelle/Suess suggested oceans would absorb less CO₂ causing more global warming than predicted.
• 1958/60’s - Charles David Keeling proved CO₂ was increasing in the atmosphere.
• 70’s/80’s Suke Manabe and James Hansen began modeling climate projections.
• Current: NCAR, GISS, Hadley, CRU, RSS TLT, UAH, MSU, Glacier Melt, Sea Level Rise, Latitudinal Shift all confirm models.

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"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."   Mahatma Gandhi

1955 is when we found out there are two kinds of  CO_2, one that is constant and naturally occurring, moving from plant to sky to sea and round again. it has been hammered by sun light for eons.  The other is from underground coal, oil and gas, from millions of years hidden from the sun and it contains a different isotope than the other, it carries a marker, a fingerprint known as C14.  This is pollution, this is what is rising in our atmosphere, not the naturally occurring form but this one, one that was stored out of harms way by nature.  This is the cause of global warming, it can be identified and counted, this is why we know we are the cause of a change in the worlds ecosystems due to new weather patterns that will almost certainly bring a lower standard of comfort to humans and decimate much of nature as we know it.  In it's place will come poison ivy and mosquitos.