Читать книгу Climate Change For Dummies - Elizabeth May - Страница 52

Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius was the first person to predict what the future atmosphere might look like in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, in 1896, Arrhenius named it “the greenhouse effect.”

He spent many of his days (and likely nights) at the end of the 19th century calculating how the carbon released by burning coal (the major source of fuel at the time) might actually change the atmospheric carbon balance. In the end, he calculated that humanity could double the concentration of atmospheric carbon — in 3,000 years.

The fact that Earth is now closing in on doubling that concentration a little more than 100 years after Arrhenius made his calculations has nothing to do with his grasp of chemistry or math — it has everything to do with the fact that he based estimates on what he knew.

The internal combustion engine was only a speculative invention, with none in use. No cars were on the road, and Arrhenius certainly had no idea about traffic jams, drive-through windows, or airplanes. Who could have imagined today’s level of fossil-fuel consumption 125 years ago? After all, Arrhenius was a chemist, not Nostradamus! More than likely Arrhenius had no idea that human population would increase by nearly a factor of 5 from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.8 billion in 2020.

These sections focus on the other GHGs that also heat up the planet. Water vapor has a big impact on warming and is taken into account by climate scientists. But it’s the increase in carbon dioxide and methane that are pushing the global carbon balance into imbalance and to dangerous shifts that drive major climatic changes.