More than hundred years ago, Swedish
scientist Svante Arrhenius asked the important question “Is the mean
temperature of the ground in any way influenced by the presence of the
heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere?” He went on to become the first person
to investigate the effect that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would have
on global climate. The question was debated throughout the early part of the
20th century and is still a main concern of Earth scientists today.
In a sense, he predicted global warming… way
back in the 1890s… when he performed a series of calculations on the
temperature effects of increasing and decreasing amounts of carbon dioxide in
the Earth's atmosphere. His calculations showed that the “temperature of the
Arctic regions would rise about 8 degrees or 9 degrees Celsius, if the carbonic acid increased 2.5 to 3
times its present value.
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| His calculations were off, due to his data sources, but they track the path accurately! |
In the 1960s his calculations were improved
on by EO Wilson and Robert MacArthur, and again showed that our increasing GHGs
are pushing us toward accelerated Global warming.
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