(Image: Patrick Hendry)
A short history of climate change: who knew what, when
“The effects will indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the world’s population).” – ExxonMobil
“Rather than warn the public, Exxon spent over $30 million on climate-denying think tanks and researchers to confuse the public about climate science—a confusion that persists to this day—while doubling down on its destructive business model. “ – Wasserman, NY Times
Instructions for interactive graphs (Credit: The 2°
- Mouse over anywhere on the graphs to see the changes over the last thousand years.
- To see time periods of your choice, hold your mouse button down on one section then drag the mouse across a few years, then release it.
- To see how this compares to the past 800,000 years, click on the ‘time’ icon on the top left.
- To return the graphs to their original position, double-click the time icon.
Explainers
Greenhouses:
Greenhouses work by convection, while atmospheric heating works by absorption and emission of electromagnetic radiation, preventing absorbed heat from leaving the atmosphere through radiative transfer (RT), which is affected by the individual chemical properties of different greenhouse gasses.
Physics and chemistry of climate change:
These are well understood and accepted laws. Although not always easily understand for those without degrees in physics, chemistry and/or maths, we use these laws every day. They work in our cars and mobile phones, every time we turn on an electrical appliance or take many of our medicines. These are the main ones:
- The Law of Conservation of Energy, a basic law of thermodynamics, which states that: ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.’
- The Stefan-Boltzmann Law
- The Clausius-Clapeyron Equation for describing a discontinuous phase transition between the different states (gas, liquid, solid) of water.
- The isotopic fingerprint of CO2 (3 minutes video explaining this)
Exxon-Mobil:
The story of the fossil fuel industry’s multi-million dollar campaign to create political and public mistrust of climate science is outside the scope of this website, however it is well documented by Pulitzer Prize winning Inside Climate News (comprehensive library of documents) and science historian Professor Naomi Oreskes in her book and documentary: Merchants of Doubt and/or her lecture: Video 2.
References and further reading
- Carbon Brief: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans
- Daily Carbon Tracker
- Science Direct: The Law of Conservation of Energy
- NOAA: Global Monitoring Laboratory – Carbon tracker Moana Loa
- NOAA: Climate forcing
- The Conversation: Hothouse Earth: our planet has been here before—and here’s what it looks like
- 2020: UN Emissions Gap Report
- 2019: IPCC: Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
- 2019: Solly; Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Highest Point in Human History Smithsonian magazine
- 2013 IPPC: Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing in: Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- 2010 Oreskes & Conway: Merchants of Doubt; Bloomsbury Press New York
- 2007: Angus; Politicians & Scientists at the IPCC
- 2004 Oreskes: Behind the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change Science 306 (5702) 686.
- 2001: Etheridge et al; Law Dome Atmospheric CO2 Data, IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2001-083. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
- 1856: Foote; Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays American Journal of Science and Arts; Vol. XXII 377-383