Arrhenius predicts global warming
A Swedish chemist calculates in 1896 what burning coal will do to the climate.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Svante Arrhenius publishes a calculation of how changing atmospheric carbon dioxide alters surface temperature, estimating that doubling it would raise temperatures by several degrees — within the range modern models give. He expected it would take millennia at then-current coal use, and regarded a warmer Sweden as desirable. The physics was correct in 1896, which is worth stating plainly: the mechanism has been understood for well over a century.