The past, present and future of climate change
Climate issue: Replacing the fossil-fuel technology which is reshaping the climate remains a massive task
IN THE EARLY 19th century Joseph Fourier, a French pioneer in the study of heat, showed that the atmosphere kept the Earth warmer than it would be if exposed directly to outer space. By 1860 John Tyndall, an Irish physicist, had found that a key to this warming lay in an interesting property of some atmospheric gases, including carbon dioxide. They were transparent to visible light but absorbed infrared radiation, which meant they let sunlight in but impeded heat from getting out. By the turn of the 20th century Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, was speculating that low carbon-dioxide levels might have caused the ice ages, and that the industrial use of coal might warm the planet.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "What goes up"
From the September 21st 2019 edition
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