A report of the Ad Hoc Study Group on carbon dioxide and climate for the National Research Council chaired by Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Jule Charney estimates “the most probable global warming for a doubling of CO2 to be near 3°C with a probable error of ± 1.5°C.” The forward to the 22-page “Charney Report” by […]
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Senior Exxon Corporation scientist James F. Black advises Exxon’s Management Committee that CO2 from the world’s use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity At a meeting at Exxon Corporation’s headquarters, senior Exxon scientist James F. Black advises Exxon’s Management Committee that “… there is general scientific agreement that the […]
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1977 The U.S. National Academy of Sciences releases a report that identifies a global warming trend caused by increased use of fossil fuels, and predicts that global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2150 due to fossil fuel emissions. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, “Energy and Climate: Studies in Geophysics,” observes, […]
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1976 Charles D. Keeling creates the “Keeling Curve,” a simple visualization of the longest continuous record of CO2 concentration in the world. A paper published by Charles D. Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and coauthors in the journal Tellus, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii,” tracks increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide measured […]
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1972 The Club of Rome publishes Limits to Growth, a report that predicts that if current growth trends continue unchanged, the limits to growth on the planet will be reached within the next 100 years. The report Limits to Growth, making unprecedented use of computer modeling, summarizes its findings as follows: “1. If the present […]
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1967 Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald are the first to use a computer model to explore the impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on the Earth’s climate Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald publish “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity” in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. They conclude […]
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1965 Roger Revelle contributes to the first mention of global warming in a government report, drawing an analogy between human-produced gases entering the global atmosphere and the effect of glass in a greenhouse Serving on the President’s Science Advisory Committee Panel on Environmental Pollution, oceanographer Roger Revelle contributes to an appendix to the government report […]
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1957 American oceanographers Roger Revelle and Hans Suess demonstrate that CO2 levels in the air have increased as a result of the use of fossil fuels Roger Revelle and Hans Suess of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography publish “Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the […]
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1956 The New York Times publishes a summary of the Gilbert Plass paper headlined “Warmer climate on the earth may be due to more carbon dioxide in the air” The New York Times summary of the Gilbert Plass paper concludes: “Even if our coal and oil reserves will be used up in 1,000 years, seventeen […]
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1956 Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass publishes a lucid explanation of “carbon dioxide theory” to account for “the general warming of the climate that has taken place in the last sixty years” Physicist Gilbert Plass of Johns Hopkins and colleagues publish “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change,” to account for “the general warming of the […]
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