Abstract
G. S. Callendar, working largely alone and from home, established the carbon dioxide theory of climate change in its essentially modern form. He studied climate change, including global temperature trends, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, and the infrared absorption and emission spectra of trace gases. He also investigated the carbon cycle, including natural and anthropogenic sources and sinks, and the role of glaciers in the Earth’s heat budget—all in an era before computer climate modeling. The data he collected on temperature records and trends worldwide filled dozens of his research notebooks; the notable series of articles on climate change he published between 1938 and 1964 were the result of his extensive calculations, laboratory measurements, literature searches, and professional correspondence.
Keywords
- Global Warming
- Carbon Cycle
- Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
- International Geophysical Year
- Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes
CP 1, Callendar to Gilbert Plass, 13 May 1957.
A complete list of Callendar’s climate publications appears in the annotated bibliography.
CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS, 8.
For extended treatments of these themes see Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change.
I. Grattan-Guinness, with J. Ravitz, Joseph Fourier, 1768–1830: A Survey of his Life and Work, Based on a Critical Edition of his Monograph on the Propagation of Heat Presented to the Institute of France in 1807 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1972); and John Herivel, Joseph Fourier: The Man and the Physicist (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
Joseph Fourier, cited in Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, p. 153, note 36.
Joseph Fourier, “Remarques générales sur les températures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires,” Ann. Chim. Phys., 2nd series, 27 (1824): 136–67. English translation by Ebeneser Burgess in Amer. J. Sci. Arts 32 (1837): 1–20.
Ibid., 155; Burgess translation, 13.
Ibid., 151-53; Burgess translation, 10-11.
John Tyndall, “On the Transmission of Heat of Different Qualities Through Gases of Different Kinds,” Proc. Roy. Inst. Gt. Br., 3 (1858–1862): 158.
John Tyndall, “On Radiation through the Earth’s Atmosphere,” Friday, 23 January 1863, Proc. Roy. Inst. Gt. Br., 4 (1851–1866): 4–8; quote from 8; also in Phil. Mag., Series 4, 25 (1863): 200-206.
W. F. Barrett, “On a Physical Analysis of the Human Breath,” Phil. Mag., 28 (1864): 108–121. This article directly follows articles on radiant heat by Tyndall and on glacial climates by James Croll.
Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, 68–71.
Svante Arrhenius, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground,” Phil. Mag., Series 5 (1896): 237–276; Elisabeth Crawford, Arrhenius: From Ionic Theory to the Greenhouse Effect (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1996); Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, 74-82.
James Rodger Fleming, “Global Climate Change and Human Agency: Inadvertent Influence and ‘Archimedean’ Interventions,” Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate, James Rodger Fleming, Vladimir Jankovic, and Deborah R. Coen, Eds. (Sagamore Beach, Mass.: Science History Publications/USA, 2006), 223–248.
Nils Ekholm, “On the Variations of the Climate of the Geological and Historical Past and Their Causes,” Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 27 (1901): 61. This article appeared in Swedish in 1899 and was translated two years later.
Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe, translated by H. Borns (New York: Harper, 1908), 54–63; Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, 82,111; David Keith, “Geoengineering & Climate: An Overview,” unpublished paper presented at the Tyndall Centre conference on Macro-engineering Options for Climate Change Management & Mitigation, Cambridge, UK, January 2004.
Richard Joel Russell, “Climatic Change through the Ages “ in U.S. Department of Agriculture, Climate and Man: Yearbook of Agriculture 1941, House Document 27, 77th Congress, 1st session (Washington, D.C., 1941), 67–97, quote from 94.
T. C. Chamberlin, “A Group of Hypotheses Bearing on Climatic Changes,” J. Geol., 5 (1897): 653–683; and Chamberlin, “An Attempt to Frame a Working Hypothesis of the Cause of Glacial Periods on an Atmospheric Basis,” J. Geol, 7 (1899): 545–584, 667–685, 751–787
Knut Angstrom, “Ueber die Bedeutung des Wasserdampfes und der Kohlensäure bei der Absorption der Erdatmosphäre,” Ann. Phys. Chimie, 5, 324, (1900): 720-733; and Angstrom, Ann. Phys. Chimie, 6, (1901): 690. CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS, 12.
C. G. Abbot and F. E. Fowle, Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian Institution, Vol. 2 (1908): 172.
G. C. Simpson, “Past Climates,” Manchester Lit. Philos. Soc. Mem., 74, 1 (1929-30): 9–10.
Many of these theories are surveyed in C. E. P. Brooks, Climate Through the Ages: A Study of the Climatic Factors and Their Variations, 2nd ed., rev. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949). See also Brooks, “Selective Annotated Bibliography on Climatic Changes,” Meteorological Abstracts and Bibliography, 1, 4 (1950): 446-475.
W. J. Humphreys, “Volcanic Dust and Other Factors in the Production of Climatic Changes, and Their Possible Relation to Ice Ages,” /. Frankl. I., 176 (1913): 132.
CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS, 14 and 195; Callendar was referring to N. Ekholm, Meteor. Z., 19 (1902):491.
L. Paschen, 1892, Ann. Phys. Chemie, 51; CP 2, Journal 1942-IRS, 10.
E. O. Hulburt, 1931, “The Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere of the Earth.” Phys. Rev., 38 (1876–90); CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS, 197.
Callendar, G. S., 1938a.
CP 2, Notebook 1942, 257.
CP 8, Folder 4.
Callendar, G. S., 1938a.
Callendar, G. S., 1938b,c,d and CP 2, Notebook 1942, 256–57.
Callendar, G. S., 1939a. Callendar, 1939c is a short entertaining piece.
Callendar’s résumé, 1940, see Figure 3.4.
Callendar, G. S., 1939b.
Ibid. Mudge, F. B., “The Development of the ‘Greenhouse’ Theory of Global Climate Change from Victorian Times,” Weather, 52 (1997): 13–17. The author claims that inaccuracies in the measurement of CO2 were “greatly reduced” by 1900 and tended to cluster around 300 parts per million. From and Keeling disagree, see note 15, chapter 6.
Callendar, G. S., 1940.
Callendar, G. S., 1941c.
Wexler, H., Mon. Wea.Rev., 64 (1936): 122; Elsasser, W. M., Mon. Wea. Rev., 66 (1938): 175; Adel, A. and V. Slipher, Astrophys. J., 89 (1939): 21.
Callendar, G. S., 1941c.
Callendar, G. S., 1941d, 1941e, and 1942.
Sutherland, G. B. B. M. and G. S. Callendar, 1942–43.
Callendar, G. S., 1943,1944.
Callendar, G. S., 1947–48.
Callendar, G. S., 1949.
Callendar, G. S., 1950a,b, 1951a,b, 1952a,b, and 1955.
Callendar, G. S., 1957a; CP 1, Plass to Callendar, 5 April 1957; CP2, Notebook 1942, 269.
CP 2, Notebook 1942, 265.
H. W. Ahlmann, “The Present Climatic Fluctuation,” Geogr. J., 112 (October–December 1948): 165–95.
H. C. Willett, “Temperature Trends of the Past Century,” Centennial Pro c. Roy. Meteor. Soc., (1950), 195–211.
J. O. Fletcher, “Climatic Change and Ice Extent on the Sea,” RAND Paper P-3831 (April 1968).
”Getting Warmer?” Time Magazine (15 May 1950).
Albert Abarbanel and Thorp McClusky, “Is the World Getting Warmer?” Saturday Evening Post (1 July 1950): 22-23, 57, 60–63.
”Invisible Blanket,” Time Magazine (25 May 1953).
Engel, Leonard, “The Weather Is Really Changing,” New York Times Magazine (12 July 1953): 7ff. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2002); See also William J. Baxter, Today’s Revolution in Weather!, cited in Fleming, 1998.
”One Big Greenhouse,” Time Magazine (28 May 1956): 59. The article cited annual world CO2 emissions of 0.5 billion tons in 1860, 9 billion tons in 1950, and a projected 47 billion tons in 2010. The current projection for 2010 is just under 28 billion tons.
A basic description of the IGY can be found at U.S. National Academies, “The International Geophysical Year,” http://www.nas.edu/history/igy (accessed 28 July 2006). The author (Fleming) is currently involved in historical reassessments of the social and intellectual implications of all the International Polar Years.
CP 1, Callendar to Plass, 12 February 1958; Keeling to Callendar, 5 February 1958; and Callendar to Keeling, 12 February 1958.
Suess, Hans E., 1953, “Natural Radiocarbon and the Rate of Exchange of Carbon Dioxide Between the Atmosphere and the Sea,” Proc. Conf. Nuclear Processes in Geologic Settings (Williams Bay, Wisconsin, 21–23 September 1953), 52.
Appearing in the same issue of Tellus 9 (1957) are Harmon Craig, “The Natural Distribution of Radiocarbon and the Exchange Time of Carbon Dioxide Between Atmosphere and Sea” 1–17; Roger Revelle and Hans E. Suess, “Carbon Dioxide Exchange between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase in Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades” 18-27; and James R. Arnold and Ernest C. Anderson, “The Distribution of Carbon-14 in Nature,” 28-32.
Plass, G. N., “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change,” Tellus, 8 (1956): 140–54 and Dingle, H. N., “The Carbon Dioxide Exchange between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Atmosphere,” Tellus, 6 (1954): 342.
Mark Bowen, Thin Ice (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), 109–110. Bowen’s chapters 6 and 7 follow the outline of Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change. For valuable perspectives on Revelle, see Ronald Rainger, “A Wonderful Océanographic Tool’: The Atomic Bomb, Radioactivity and the Development of American Oceanography,” The Machine in Neptune’s Garden: Historical Perspectives on Technology and the Marine Environment, Helen M. Rozwadowski and David K. Van Keuren, Eds. (Sagamore Beach, Mass.: Science History Publications/USA, 2004), 96-132.
CP 3, Notebook 1956-11, 28–32; CP 1, Callendar to Plass, 13 May 1957; Callendar, G. S., 1957a; Callendar, G. S., 1958a; and CP 2, Notebook 1942, 269.
CP 1, Plass to Callendar, 30 December 1957; Callendar 1957b.
In Bert Bolin,Ed., The Atmosphere and the Sea in Motion: Scientific Contributions to the Rossby Memorial Volume (New York: Rockefeller Institute Press, 1958), 130–142.
The 96 notebooks, including 25 with overlapping content, have the following themes: British temperatures 7%, CO2 11%, glaciers 5%, infrared 8%, Percuil weather data 6%, references 6%, sea temperatures 1%, and world and regional temperatures 68%.
Callendar, G. S., 1961a,b. CP 1 contains related correspondence with Landsberg and Mitchell. Draft copy of the article and data in CP 8, Folder 2, Notebook 1960-05-17; reprint and retrospective note in CP 8, Folder 4; comments in CP 2, Notebook 1942, 271.
CP 1, Levinson, 19 November 1960.
CP 8, Folder 4,1964. Temperature note 1, 2.
Callendar, G. S., 1964.
Hubert H. Lamb, “Some Aspects of the Cold, Disturbed Climate of Recent Centuries, the ‘Little Ice Age,’ and Similar Occurrences,” Pure and Applied Geophysics 119 (1980/81): 628–629.
CP 1, Gordon Manley to Callendar, 8 October 1958.
Bowen, Thin Ice, 96.
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Fleming, J.R. (2007). Global Warming and Anthropogenic CO2 . In: The Callendar Effect. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-935704-04-1_5
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