Science

A chemist calculated man-made global warming by hand in 1896

Svante Arrhenius hand-calculated that doubling atmospheric CO2 would raise global temperatures several degrees, work he did to explain past ice ages rather than to warn about the future. He also noted, almost as an aside, that industrial coal-burning would raise CO2 over centuries — his estimate of the warming effect was remarkably close to modern climate models.

Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground — Philosophical Magazine, 1896

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