Fossil carbon starts accumulating
Industrial emissions begin the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide that continues today.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 145 years
- Known to
- ± 10 years
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Atmospheric carbon dioxide stood around 280 parts per million throughout the Holocene. Coal, then oil and gas, begin adding to it measurably from the nineteenth century, reaching roughly 310 parts per million by 1945. Arrhenius had already calculated the consequence in 1896 and Callendar argued in 1938 that warming was already detectable. Systematic measurement does not begin until Keeling in 1958.