-
A French physicist named Joseph Fourier mentions the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect". Fourier studied the earth's temperature from a mathematical perspective and he was the first person to scientifically describe the greenhouse effect. in his paper, he wrote: "The temperature can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere because the heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat." -
Irish physicist John Tyndall made the discovery that water vapour and other gases create the greenhouse effect. This was a significant discovery resulting over a century later of the naming of a British climate research organisation being called the Tyndall centre -
Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concluded that coal-burning gases would add to the greenhouse effect and that it was important to be monitored for future generations. His discovery is similar to what is discovered in modern-day climate models. -
Knut Angstrom from Sweden found that CO2 will absorb parts of the infrared spectrum no matter how small the particles. He unintentionally showed that even a trace gas could produce greenhouse warming. -
Although widely dismissed by scientists British engineer Guy Callendar showed that over 100 years temperatures had risen and that CO2 concentrations would continue to rise thus causing warming. -
Gilbert Plass through the use of early computers was able to analyze how various gases absorbed infrared. temperatures would increase by 3-4 degrees if CO2 was doubled. -
Although it was believed seawater would absorb any additional CO2 entering the atmosphere Rodger Revelle an oceanographer and Hans Suess a Chemist disproved the theory and said that more experiments would need to be carried out to better understand this new discovery. -
Charle Keeling with his own equipment began to work on a project in Mauna Loa in Hawaii as well as in Antarctica which systematized the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. -
By this time world countries are well aware of the effects of CO2 and its effect on the atmosphere and so many governments formed scientific groups with objectives to monitor and collate data. Many stated that humans were largely responsible for the climate change
-
The Kyoto Protocol was a United Nations pledge which was made in the hopes to reduce carbon emissions by 5% by limiting high greenhouse gas-producing countries.
-
evolving weather conditions combined with climate change produced the hottest year ever recorded. The mean global temperature exceeded 0.52 degrees above the average from the period 1961 to 1990. -
In 1997 the Kyoto protocol was formed for international communities to set targets and measures in a bid to limit and reduce global warming. not all countries agreed with the conditions set but in 2005 the Kyoto protocol became international law for those countries still involved. currently, 192 parties belong to the Kyoto protocol.
-
The Stern Review's concluded that the benefits of premature actions on climate change outweigh the costs of not acting at all. The Review put forward that 1% percent of the world's global GDP yearly is essential funding to help avoid climate change's worst effects.
-
Keeling's project results showed CO2 concentration continued to rise from 350 ppms in 1958 to 380 ppms in 2008. -
Scientific data this year showed that greenhouse gas concentrations were rising faster and that over the last century the earth land surface had also warmed -
Since Beginning mesurments of arctic sea ice in 1979 satellite pictures showed that in 2012 the summer cover was the lowest it had ever been at 3.41 million sq km. -
CO2 in the atmosphere has surpassed 400ppms since measurements began in 1958. the results were collated from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. scientists still continue to believe that since 1950 humans are the main cause of global warming. -
NASA launches OCO-2 to gather global measurements of what is happening in the atmosphere. the equipment measures CO2. Its resolution, precision, and coverage, and this information is used to determine how important it is to greenhouse gases. -
Scientists have found that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet could be irreversible which could be disastrous in future centuries with extreme heat and a high sea-level rise. Scientists have used equipment at Vostok in Antarctica to extract ice cores and this then provides by measuring the bubbles the records of CO2 levels over the past 800,000 years from the air trapped in the cores (carbon dating)
-
In 2019 the average global temperature was 14.8°C which was the hottest in tens of thousands of years. The CO2 level in the atmosphere was 415 ppm which scientists say was the highest in millions of years.