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A mild-mannered biker started a climate change debate 84 years ago

A mild-mannered biker started a climate change debate 84 years ago

callendar measurements of temperature

Scientists knew for decades that scientists could detect this. carbon dioxidecould heat the planet and trap heat. Guy Callendar, however, was the first to harness heat and warm the planet. Connect human activities and 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.

Callendar His findings were publishedIt set off a firestorm. He was seen by the scientific establishment as an outsider and a little bit of a meddling gentleman scientist. He was correct.

His theory became widely known as “the Callendar Effect.” Today, it’s known as global warming. Callendar defended this theoryHe was still puzzled, even after his death in 1964.

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

Scientists include Joseph Fourier, Eunice Foote, John Tyndall, 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.

These scientists only spoke of the future, however. Callendar proved that global warming was already occurring.

A page from Guy Callendar’s 1938 paper shows how he tracked and calculated CO2 changes, all in his spare time.GS Callendar, 1938

Who was Guy Callendar

Callendar was awarded a Certificate in mechanics and mathFrom City and Guilds College, London in 1922 and went on to work for his father who was a well-known British scientist. They shared a mutual interest in physics, motorcycle racing, meteorology, and physics.

Callendar would later be a part of the U.K. Ministry of Supply during World War II in armament research and continue to conduct war-related research at Langhurst (a secret research facility) after the war.

His climate change work was accomplished on his own. Callendar kept meticulous weather records, including temperature and carbon dioxide levels, in journals. In an 1938: Innovative paper published, he claimed there was an “increase in mean temperature, due to the artificial production of carbon dioxide.”

He averaged diverse sets of temperature data from all over the world, primarily using the Smithsonian publication “World Weather Records,” and derived global average temperatures that It tracks very well with current estimates for the average temperatures at the time.

He also calculated how much carbon dioxide humans were putting into the atmosphere – the annual net human addition. It was 4.3 billion tons in 1938. Comparable to current estimatesFor that year, it was approximately 4.2 billion tonnes. Notice that 2018 was a record year for global carbon dioxide emissions About 36 billion tonnes.

Callendar compiled published data on carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere and created a graph that correlated temperature increases with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

The discovery — Callendar recognized the need for new data on heat absorption of carbon dioxide. Different wavelengths than water vaporIt meant that adding carbon dioxide to water vapor would trap more heat than just water vapor.

In the period before Callendar’s paper, key scientists thought the huge volume of Water vapor in the atmosphere, one of the “greenhouse” gases that keep Earth warm, would dwarf any contribution by carbon dioxide to Earth’s heat balance. However, heat is radiated into space as waves with a range, and water vapor only absorbs some of those wavelengths.

Callendar knew that carbon dioxide absorbs heat at wavelengths that water misses, according to recent absorption data.

Guy Stewart Callendar in 1934.G.S. G.S.

Callendar also considered layers in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is more concentrated in the atmosphere at higher altitudes than it is water vapor. Atmospheric water vapor evaporates and then precipitates out of the atmosphere as rain or snow, but adding carbon dioxide severely upsets Earth’s energy balance because it stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Carbon dioxide forms a heat-trapping layer high in the atmosphere, absorbing heat that radiates upward from Earth’s surface and then emitting it back towards Earth’s surface. Callendar’s paperThis mechanism was explained to me.

After Callendar published his paper, global warming caused by human activities generating carbon dioxide was widely referred to as the “Callendar Effect.”

His 1938 view was however limited. Callendar didn’t foresee the danger or the magnitude of the temperature rise the world is now experiencing. He actually speculated that by burning carbon we might forestall “The return of the deadly glaciers.”

His paperProjections for a 0.39 degree Celsius temperature increase by the 21st Century are optimistic. The world is already today 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) warmer than before the industrial era — three times the magnitude of the effect Callendar predicted.

The backlash — The “Callendar Effect” faced immediate resistance. Initial reviewers made comments that challenged his data and methods.

The debate Callendar sparked Continued throughout the remainder of the 20th Century. In the meantime, temperature and carbon dioxide data were accumulated.

Review of climate science by the late 20th century had given stark warnings about the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels. The debate that Callendar sparked is over.

Since 1990, scientists from all over the globe, brought together by the United Nations, World Meteorological Organization, have reviewed the evidence and reviewed the research. Their reports confirm: The science behind this is quite clear humans’ role in climate change. The threat is real, and the consequences of climate change are already being felt Already evidentAll around us

This article was originally published on The ConversationBy Sylvia G. Deeat Rice University. Read theOriginal article here.

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