The first warmist
The first attempt to quantify the link between CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures was attributed to Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, in a paper in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science in 1896. He was working on a theory to explain the oscillation between ice ages and interglacial periods. He calculated that increasing the concentration of carbonic acid (as CO2 was then known) in the atmosphere would result in a global temperature increase of 8 to 9˚C.
— His extrapolation was not that man-made carbon emissions were dangerous; but that the rate of coal-burning was cancelling out the process of CO2 absorption caused by limestone weathering. The implication of his paper was that fossil fuel emissions might delay the onset of another ice age.
Who’s a believer?
What proportion of scientists believe in the theory of man-made climate change?
99.
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