Earth & Cosmos / Earth, Climate & Environment

Greenhouse effect

Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1859) and Arrhenius (1896) showed that gases like CO2 trap heat and that burning coal could warm the planet.

John Tyndall measured in the laboratory that CO2 and water vapour absorb infrared radiation. Svante Arrhenius calculated in 1896 that changing CO2 would change temperatures by several degrees. For decades the idea stayed a curiosity because the oceans were thought to absorb all emissions.